LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Chap.. Copyright No. 

Shelf..I.ll2 I 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



POLITICS 



FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 



3V 

CHARLES NORDHOFF 

Author of "God and the Future Life," " The Communistic Societies of the 

United States," "Cape Cod and All Along Shore" "California 

for Health, Pleasure, and Residence}' etc. 



A NEWLY REVISED EDITION FOR SCHOOLS 
AND COLLEGES 




NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI :■ CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



1 
Register of Cop, 



49502 

Copyright, 1899, by 
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. 

Copyright, 1875, by 
HARPER & BROTHERS. 



NORDHOFF'S POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS. 

w. p. 1 



SECOND GOPV, 



5~\ lo^ o 



TO READERS, TEACHERS, AND 
STUDENTS 

In the following pages I have attempted to explain in 
simple language, and by familiar illustrations fitted for the 
comprehension of young men and women, the meaning 
and limits of liberty, law, government, and human rights ; 
and thus to make easily intelligible to them the political 
principles on which our system of government in the 
United States is founded. 

I believe that free government is a political application 
of the Christian theory of life ; that at the base of our 
Political System lies the Golden Rule ; and that to be a 
good citizen of the United States one ought to be imbued 
with the spirit of Christianity, and to believe in and act 
upon the teachings of Jesus. He condemned self-seeking, 
covetousness, hypocrisy, class distinctions, envy, malice, 
undue and ignoble ambition ; and he inculcated self- 
restraint, repression of the lower and meaner passions, 
love to the neighbor, contentment, gentleness, regard for 
the rights and happiness of others, and respect for the 
law. 

It seems to me that the vices he condemned are those 
also which are dangerous to the perpetuity of free govern- 

3 



ment ; and that the principles he inculcated may be prop- 
erly used as tests of the merits of a political system or a 
public policy. In this spirit I have written, believing that 
thus " government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people," can be most clearly justified and explained. 

" Politics for Young Americans " has been so fortunate 
as to retain, since its first publication in 1875, the favor of 
many teachers, students, and readers ; and it has seemed 
to me, and to the publishers, advisable that I should now 
make a thorough revision of it ; to eliminate examples 
or illustrations which have in the course of time become 
obsolete and ineffective, and to add several new chapters 
covering important questions bearing on constitutional 
government, which have become prominent since the book 
was written. 

But in doing this I have made no change in the general 

principles upon which the book is based, because these gen- 

eral principles remain, in my belief, sound and just and 

fundamental. 

CHARLES NORDHOFF. 

Coronado, California, 
July, 1899. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction 7 

CHAPTEK 

I. Of Society 9 

II. Of Liberty, and the Province of Law . . . . .12 

III. Of Governments . . . . . . . . .14 

IV. Of the Primary and Necessary Functions of Government . . 16 
V. Of Some Other Functions of Government .... 20 

VI. Of the Usefulness and the Inconvenience of Free Govern- 
ment .......... 24 

VII. Of the Different Parts of a Government 29 

VIII. Of Decentralization 30 

IX. Of the Responsibility of the Executive 32 

X. Of Political Parties 36 

XL Who vote, and why . . 38 

XII. What Officers should not be elected 41 

XIII. Of Political Constitutions 45 

XIV. Of the Legislative or Lawmaking Branch of Government . 48 
XV. Of Town Meetings 50 

XVI. Of Education 51 

XVII. Of Taxes 54 

XVIII. Of Public Debts 59 

XIX. Of Property 61 

XX. Of Barter 64 

XXI. Of the Materials used for Money 67 

XXII. Of Subsidiary Currency ........ 69 

XXIII. Of Bimetallism 71 

XXIV. Of " Legal Tender " Laws 74 

5 



6 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXV. Of Banks, Banking, and Credit 77 

XXVI. Of Bank Notes . .81 

XXVII. Of " Greenbacks " S3 

XXVIII. Of Usury Laws 85 

XXIX. Of Commerce 91 

XXX. Of Diversity of Industries, Monopolies, and Trusts . . 99 

XXXI. Of Labor and Capital 112 

XXXII. Of Corporations, and Limited Liability Laws . . 1 1 5 

XXXIII. Of Trades Unions and Strikes 118 

XXXIV. Of Prohibitory Laws, so called 122 

XXXV. Of " Local Option " 126 

XXXVI. Of Party Government — the Importance of the Minority . 127 

XXXVII. Of the Public Service 130 

XXXVIII. Of Confederation and Union 134 

XXXIX. The American Political System 138 

XL. Of the Rights and Duties of an American Citizen . . 143 

XLI. Of City Governments 146 

XLII. Of Trial by Jury 150 

XLIII. Of Territories and Colonies 153 

XLIV. When we Number One Hundred Millions . . . . 157 

XLV. Rules for the Conduct of Deliberative Assemblies . .160 

APPENDIX 



I. Constitution of the United States of America . , . . 175 

II. Questions on the Constitution . . . . . . .186 

III. Declaration of Independence ....... 191 

IV. Washington's Farewell Address . 195 

Index 206 



POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 



INTRODUCTION 

An American citizen ought to perform the duties of 
citizenship intelligently, and not ignorantly ; and to do this 
it is advisable that he should understand the principles on 
which our government is established. This is the more 
necessary because the right cause is sometimes in the 
minority, and it is of great importance that its adherents 
should be able to give clear and convincing reasons for 
their course, for thus only can a minority hope to become 
a majority and thus have authority from the mass of 
voters to carry out that policy which they believe to be 
right and wise for the country. In a free state every real 
political contest concerns the principles and policies on 
which the government should be carried on ; and you have 
only to read any great debate in Congress to see of what 
extreme importance to the preservation of free govern- 
ment, by right and wise policies, is the ability to compre- 
hend for yourself and to expose clearly to others the 
fundamental principles of our government. 

To the citizen of a free state, politics concerns itself 
in the largest sense with the liberty and the prosperity of 
the people, which are sure to be affected by bad laws — 
and bad laws are often adopted with the best motives, and 

7 



8 INTRODUCTION 

urged and supported by men who are as truly patriotic 
and benevolent as they are ignorant or shortsighted. 

It is one of the great merits of our political system in 
the United States that, though it appears at first view com- 
plicated, it is in fact sufficiently simple to be understood 
by all the citizens. In what follows I mean to explain the 
general principles on which free government rests, and the 
manner in which those principles are applied in our own 
country; and I shall try to do this in such a way that, 
with a little attention and study, readers and students will, 
I hope, be able to understand all that is needful. 

At the foundation of all government is Society, and of 
this it is expedient that I should first tell you something. 



OF SOCIETY 

1. We find all mankind to possess certain qualities, 
faculties, and desires, which move and rule them, whether 
they are savages or call themselves civilized, and whether 
they are black, brown, yellow, or white. 

2. One of the principal and most important qualities of 
mankind is gregariousness. This means that men have a 
propensity to gather in flocks or herds ; a propensity also 
of many animals, as sheep, cattle, horses, blackbirds, ele- 
phants, and some monkeys. This desire for the society 
of their kind leads animals to go in droves, and makes iso- 
lation hateful to them ; and in like manner collects savage 
men into tribes, and civilized men into nations, which are 
only larger and more highly organized tribes. 

3. But as man has received from God qualities, faculties, 
and desires which the beasts have not, men are able to do 
something more and higher than the beasts ; and the rudest 
tribe of savages has rules for the conduct of its members 
which the most highly developed society of apes or black- 
birds or elephants of which we know is without. 

4. Animals have, 1, desire to live ; 2, desire for sufficient 
food ; 3, desire to propagate their kind and to protect their 
young ; and, 4, desire to avoid pain, and to live, therefore, 
in the circumstances for which their nature best fits them : 
in other words, to be comfortable. When you see more of 
men, you will discover that some men are very much like 

9 



IO POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

animals, and have no aspirations or desires which can not 
be properly ranged under the above heads. Such a per- 
son you ought not to be. 

5. Besides the desires which we have in common with 
beasts, and which are necessary to us in order to preserve 
our species from extinction, God has given us other de- 
sires, and faculties which, if we wish, we may use for 
their fulfillment. These higher qualities of our lives are not 
needed for the mere preservation of life. Some of those 
which by general consent are regarded as the highest, lead 
inevitably to the lessening of many of our pleasures, and 
not unfrequently to the surrender of an individual's com- 
fort, happiness, and even life, to increase, as he believes, 
the welfare of his fellow men. Looking at these higher 
motives, desires, and aspirations, and at the degree in which 
they interfere with the happiness or comfort of the body 
alone, it is reasonable to believe, what Jesus taught, that 
men have something immortal, destined to live on after the 
body perishes, and capable, after its release from the body, 
of still greater development and higher enjoyments. This 
something we call the Soul. 

6. Take notice that the soul of man should not obey the 
law of living, but the law of duty, which means self- 
sacrifice. We see this spirit of self-sacrifice and duty not- 
ably shown where a people is engaged in what it believes 
to be a just war. In such a case we see the best citizens 
cast aside the mere law of living, and obey the much higher 
and nobler law of duty. Instead of remaining at home, 
pursuing their usual callings in comfort, with their families 
about them, and their wealth increasing, we see them 
breaking up the careers they had planned, leaving their 
families and comfortable homes to face unaccustomed hard- 
ships and dangers, or to perish of disease or die on the field 



SOCIETY 1 1 

of battle. They do and suffer thus, not to benefit themselves, 
or to gratify the desires or passions which men have in 
common with the beasts, but out of what we all feel to be 
a nobler, an elevating, and, as we say, patriotic wish to 
protect their country. A tiger would be incapable of such 
motives : if he fought, it would be from greed for food, 
from a desire for a more comfortable lodgment, out of jeal- 
ousy, or in self-defense, supplemented eventually by rage. 

7. A creature believing himself to possess an immortal 
part, or soul, destined to survive the body, would reason- 
ably seek to prepare this immortal part for the conditions 
under which it is to exist. And as the future life is, as we 
are taught, to be lived without the help of the body, it is 
evident that training the soul or spirit consists in increas- 
ing by cultivation our capacity for those enjoyments which 
do not depend upon the body. To curb the body, there- 
fore, and keep it under control, to restrain the lower pas- 
sions — those which we have in common with the beasts — 
and to weed out of ourselves envy, greed, spite, covetous- 
ness, jealousy, hypocrisy, ill-temper — all tending to dis- 
regard for the rights of others — would appear, aside from 
the commands and instructions of religion, to be the reason- 
able and prudent course of every one who believes himself 
to have an immortal part, or soul. 

8. But God has so made the world, and so formed man- 
kind, that they naturally and inevitably respect and esteem 
most highly those who most consistently act upon this 
theory of life. The whole world is combined to honor 
Washington ; and it is equally unanimous in execrating a 
merely vulgar and selfish trader or politician. 

9. Now I wish you to remember, as a fundamental 
truth in American politics, that the course of life which 
is thus calculated to fit your immortal part for the future 



12 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

and spiritual life is also that course which will make you a 
good citizen of the United States. 

10. To be a good citizen means not merely that you 
shall give such prudent obedience to the laws as will 
keep you out of jail. It means that you shall in all parts 
of your life live moderately and virtuously ; that you shall 
"love your neighbor as yourself," and therefore do him no 
wrong ; that you shall pursue your aims in life with such 
moderation as to avoid interfering with the happiness of 
others ; that you shall endeavor by your actions, whenever 
occasion serves, to benefit your fellow men ; for selfishness 
breeds selfishness, covetousness corrupts those who behold 
it, and liberty can be maintained only among a people who 
practice self-sacrifice, and to whom a virtuous life seems 
more important than mere selfish success. 

ii. To be a good man is your first duty as an Ameri- 
can ; but you ought also, if possible, to be a wise citizen, 
and to that end you should understand what are the proper 
powers and the proper limitations of government ; what 
can not, usefully, as well as what can, be done by law. For 
some of the most foolish and injurious laws on our statute 
books have been enacted by good men with a sincere desire 
to increase the happiness of their fellow beings. We come 
then, next, to the consideration of Liberty and the Province 
of Law. 

II 

OF LIBERTY, AND THE PROVINCE OF LAW 

12. You enjoy liberty when you may say and do what- 
ever pleases you and does not injure other persons. If 
every human being were endowed with infallible judgment 
as to the effect of his acts on others, and strength of pur- 



LIBERTY, AND THE PROVINCE OF LAW 1 3 

pose to avoid everything that could injure his fellows, laws 
would be needless. 

13. But as the judgment of men is fallible and their 
strength varies, and as all men do not think alike, it has 
been found necessary in almost all societies, however 
rudely organized, to declare what shall be held injurious ; 
and not only this, but to declare penalties for such injurious 
acts. Bear in mind, however, that political laws can cover 
only a part and not the whole duty of man ; and that there 
is no lower or meaner rogue than he who studies the law 
merely to keep out of its clutches. 

14. Necessarily and wisely, in a free country like ours, 
the lawmaking powers are distributed, some to the gen- 
eral or Federal Government, some to the States, and yet 
others to cities and counties. We have thus a great num- 
ber of legislative bodies ; and while this is necessary, be- 
cause it would be impossible for one body, as the Federal 
Congress, to regulate the minor and local affairs of States, 
counties, and cities, it has yet in our day aided in the crea- 
tion of an evil, in the very great multiplication of laws. 
This has become a curse to the people, and has a tendency 
to bring into contempt, not only the laws, but those who 
make them. This evil is so strongly felt by the citizens 
that in most of the States it has been ordained that the 
legislature shall meet, not annually, but only once in two 
years. 

15. But, considering the propensity of men to multiply 
laws, and, often with good intentions, to legislate upon 
subjects which do not come properly within the limits of 
law, it is proper to tell you this: Lazvs should be few in 
number and simple in structure ; they sliould rigidly avoid 
granting special privileges or immunities to individuals, but 
should be general in their application ; and they ought never 



14 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

to interfere with the liberty of men to move about peaceably 
from place to place ; to discuss freely public affairs and ques- 
tions ; to engage in whatever honest occupation pleases the7n ; 
to produce whatever seems to them most suitable ; and to ex- 
change what they have produced where they please, and for 
what they most desire. These limitations of the lawmaking 
power no doubt seem to you so simple and so evidently 
just that you wonder that they need to be specified; but, 
in fact, there is in every legislative body a constant pro- 
pensity to overstep these limits, — a tendency which the 
united efforts of the wisest men in any State, or in the 
whole country, cannot entirely resist. It is too commonly 
believed that additional laws are necessary for the reform 
of abuses ; but it is a fact, noticed by many eminent states- 
men, that ALMOST ALL MODERN REFORMS OF ABUSES, in 

Europe and also in this country, have been effected, 

NOT BY ENACTING NEW LAWS, BUT BY REPEALING OLD ONES. 



Ill 

OF GOVERNMENTS 

1 6. Governments may be said to be necessary evils, 
their necessity arising out of the selfishness and stupidity 
of mankind. 

17. They are of different kinds : Despotisms, where the 
will of one man is the law ; oligarchies, where a few make 
the laws for those subordinate to them ; and free or popu- 
lar governments, where the laws are made by the people, 
or by persons they select for that purpose. 

18. In reading history, you will discover that the less 
intelligent and more selfish a nation was, the more despotic 
was its government, and the more arbitrary and vexatious 



GOVERNMENTS 1 5 

its laws ; and that as the general average of virtue and 
intelligence in a nation increased, in the same degree its 
government and laws became milder and more just. It is 
equally true that a nation which has enjoyed an excellent 
government may, by the corruption of its morals, and the 
consequent increase of selfishness and ignorance, lose this, 
and have imposed on it a worse, and even the worst, form 
of government. Thus I wish you to believe that it is only 
by maintaining, and even elevating, the standard of virtue 
and real intelligence among our people that we can pre- 
serve our free institutions. 

19. Hence the importance that you should be a good 
citizen, in the largest sense ; for the example of each tells 
upon all who surround him. If you should be dishonest, 
unscrupulous, regardless of others' rights, covetous of 
wealth or distinction to the injury of others, envious, in 
any way base, your course would help to demoralize and 
debauch the unthinking and weak, which means the larger 
part of those who surround you. The success of bad men, 
temporary though it be, is a serious injury to the com- 
munity, because to the younger and the thoughtless this 
success appears to condone the moral misconduct. This 
is why good men and women abhor the bad public example 
of a successful political demagogue, a corrupt or incom- 
petent man in office, or one who aims at great power or 
possessions without regard to the public welfare or the 
rights of others. For this reason, to give a conspicuous 
example, Napoleon III. drew upon himself in an especial 
manner, during his reign over France, the bitter dislike 
of thoughtful men and women in all countries, and the 
disgraceful and humiliating close of his career was wel- 
comed as the righteous ending of a vulgar and merely 
selfish life. Such bad examples are contagious, and de- 



1 6 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

moralize the weaker part of society, who hunger for suc- 
cess, and think they see success crown evil deeds. Thus 
public opinion is degraded, vice becomes less odious, and 
virtue and self-restraint seem less important. On the other 
hand the example of probity, of faithfulness to duty and 
to principle, even in the lowest citizen, is valuable and im- 
portant because it wins general respect, not merely for the 
man, but for those virtues of which his life is an example. 



IV 

OF THE PRIMARY AND NECESSARY FUNCTIONS OF 
GOVERNMENT 

20. The primary and necessary functions of any gov- 
ernment are to maintain the peace and to administer jus- 
tice, which means to protect the orderly and law-abiding 
part of the people in the enjoyment of life and property 
and against the attacks of the disorderly and lawbreaking. 
Necessarily it has also to collect from the people, in the 
manner most equal and least oppressive, the money needed 
to pay the officers charged with these duties. 

21. Where the average of virtue, intelligence, and self- 
restraint is high among a people, their government needs to 
interfere but little in their affairs. Where this average is 
low, government always interferes more, by means of po- 
lice, armies, and vexatious regulations. This arises from 
the fact that peace, order, and the security of life and 
property are regarded as the most precious and necessary 
possessions by every people, and to secure these, men and 
nations are generally ready to give up a large measure of 
political liberty, and to suffer many other and minor evils, 
such as high taxation. On this plea the French people 



PRIMARY FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT \J 

were induced to accept Napoleon as the " savior of so- 
ciety," and the common excuse for a despotism is that it 
is necessary to maintain order ; which nevertheless it does 
not maintain, except temporarily, and at the monstrous 
cost of increasing the ignorance and helplessness and 
diminishing the virtue and public spirit of the nation, and 
thus in the end increasing tremendously the causes of 
disorder. Napoleon III. held France by the throat for 
eighteen years, and all the meaner sort of mankind glori- 
fied him as the wisest of rulers ; but eighteen years of 
liberty, even with the greatest presumable amount of dis- 
order, would not have left France so poor, debt ridden, and 
humiliated as it was at the overthrow of Napoleon. Fur- 
ther, it is important for you to bear in mind that while the 
despotic rule of Napoleon III. brought upon France three 
costly wars in eighteen years, the French republic has 
kept the peace since 1871 — a much longer period; and 
this, though it has had to contend with many internal diffi- 
culties, left to it as an evil inheritance by the preceding 
despotism. A republic is the most peaceably inclined 
form of government. The mass of the people never will- 
ingly enter on, or cordially support, an aggressive war; 
though for the defense of their rights, if these are attacked 
from without, history shows by many examples that no 
people is so formidable as a free nation. 

22. It is only where the people have public spirit 
enough to resent wrong, and to give vigorous and instant 
support to the officers of justice, that governments can be 
efficient; and it is true that no government will be just, 
economical, or efficient unless the general opinion of the 
people demands that it shall be so. Rulers are only men : 
the possession of power easily demoralizes the best and 
wisest of men ; and no ruler will long be just, efficient, 

NORD. — 2 



1 8 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

honest, or respectable, or will long keep within constitu- 
tional bounds, who does not feel and fear the force of 
public indignation ; nor will rogues fear the laws, unless 
they are assured that the mass of citizens will vigorously 
demand the prompt enforcement of the laws. 

23. Good laws are useless unless they are vigorously and 
promptly enforced. Where punishment follows surely and 
quickly on the crime, crimes tend to become rare. Where 
trial and punishment are delayed or uncertain, crimes tend 
to increase, not only in frequency but in degree. We see 
this in some of our great cities, where crime flourishes and 
criminals become audacious, because influences of various 
kinds create delay in trial and failure of justice. There 
is a story, of the days of the notorious Tweed Ring in 
New York, of a burglar who was caught in the act of 
entering a house. He was seized before he had actually 
forced an entrance, and pleaded to the judge that therefore 
he had not really committed a breach of the law. Having 
what in low political and thieves' slang is called a " pull," 
he was discharged, whereupon he demanded the return of 
his kit of false keys and jimmies, on the ground that these 
were "the tools of his trade." 

24. Back of all laws and all authority must lie a belief 
that in the last resort every citizen will defend his own 
rights. You cannot put a corporal's guard at every man's 
door. The thief or robber at bottom never fears the law 
and the government nearly so much as he does the right 
arm and courage of the man he seeks to injure. This is 
shown wherever, in our own country, any even incon- 
siderable body of citizens have suffered themselves to be 
robbed, whether on the highway or by combinations of 
demagogues. Train and stage robberies are still not un- 
common in the far West, and seem to increase in fre- 



PRIMARY FUNCTIONS OF . GOVERNMENT 1 9 

quency ; and this is because these robbers have found that 
they need not fear resistance from the passengers, but 
have only to deal with the stage driver or the few train 
men ; while if they are caught they have before them a 
long trial, with the hope of escaping justice in the end. 
A few quick and sure shots from the passengers would do 
much to put a stop to this odious form of crime ; but the 
certainty of prompt and severe punishment by law would 
do more. 

25. In Mexico, when railroads were first introduced, 
attacks on trains of various kinds were for a time very 
common. President Diaz, a very able ruler, who knew 
the extreme importance of swift and sure justice for crime, 
advised the Mexican Congress to enact a law by which any 
one caught injuring or attacking a railroad train should 
be shot at once and on the immediate scene of his crime. 
This law he vigorously enforced, with the result that 
attacks on railroad trains are to-day very rare in Mexico. 

26. In Montana, in the early days of its settlement, 
and before a territorial government was established, its 
people, a large proportion of whom were excellent citi- 
zens, lay for a considerable time subject to a powerful 
and well organized robber band, whose members openly 
defied law and justice, and became so audacious that they 
even rode into shops, in open day, and demanded tribute 
from shopkeepers. The citizens, in fear for their lives, 
dreaded to resist. But a number of courageous men at 
last formed themselves into a force, called " The Vigi- 
lantes of Montana," determined to put an end summarily 
to this organized band of robbers. They took their lives 
in their hands, for the robbers were unhesitating mur- 
derers. One day a courageous shopkeeper shot dead a 
robber chief who rode into his store to demand tribute, 



20 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

and that bold act, arousing the citizens, caused the speedy- 
extirpation of the robbers, many of whom were caught 
and summarily hanged, while others were shot, and the 
remainder driven out of the Territory with notice that if 
thereafter they were found anywhere in Montana they 
would be shot "on sight." Thus law and order were suc- 
cessfully reestablished ; but only by the united action of 
the good citizens. 

27. It is only where the mass of the people resent the 
violation of law and order, and are prompt in coming to 
the help of the officers to enforce the laws and put down 
wrongdoers, that free government is secure. Where the 
people are careless, and submit readily to wrong, the law 
soon falls into disrepute, rights are invaded, and disor- 
ders are encouraged. Hence, in a free community the citi- 
zens can not delegate to police or other law officers the 
whole duty of maintaining peace and order ; they must 
hold themselves ready at all times to assist by their coun- 
tenance, and if need be by their personal efforts, the 
officers whom they have charged with the execution of the 
laws. This does not imply the obligation or the right 
of citizens to take the law into their own hands unless the 
established authorities permanently fail of their duty ; the 
citizens must promptly insist on the proper officers doing 
their duty, and if need be help them, acting under their 
authority. 

V 

OF SOME OTHER FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT 

28. The primary and necessary functions of govern- 
ment are, as I told you in the last section, to maintain the 
peace and execute justice between the different members 



SOME OTHER FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT 21 

of society. Under this head come the maintenance of 
the army, navy, and police, and the conduct of official 
intercourse with foreign nations, and in our country with 
Indian tribes — whom we have treated as foreign nations, 
bv which course we have retarded their advance into civi- 
lization, and caused endless Indian wars and constant 
corruption. 

29. But all civilized governments are charged with 
yet other duties, which, it has been found, they can per- 
form, if not in a better, yet in a more uniform and conven- 
ient manner, than private citizens, and. which are also 
incidentally of political importance. These duties are : 
the maintenance of the post office — by which intercourse 
by letters, and the dissemination of printed information, 
are made uniformly easy and cheap all over the country ; 
the public or free education of youth ; the maintenance of 
a lighthouse system ; the protection and improvement of 
harbors ; the making of scientific observations which need 
to be conducted systematically during a great number of 
years in order to be valuable ; the survey of lands, and 
the recording of deeds, which are the tokens of ownership 
in land ; the care of the public health, the prevention 
or abolition of nuisances, and quarantine or the keeping 
out of infectious diseases ; the care of roads and bridges ; 
and some others. 

30. Some of these matters we leave to the Federal 
Government ; others are assigned to the States ; and others 
yet are deputed by these to the city and county govern- 
ments. 

31. I wish you to remember that private enterprise 
would perform some of these offices or duties as well as 
and perhaps better than the public authorities. Thus, in 
some of our great cities it has been proved in actual practice 



22 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

that the inhabitants of a block or square, joining together 
independently of the city authorities, were able to keep 
their street area clean at little cost, where the authorities 
had persistently and vexatiously failed of this. 

32. In the early days of California and Nevada it was 
a common practice of the people to send important letters, 
not through the post office, but by Wells-Fargo's express. 
This private company exacted not only the governmental 
stamp but an additional payment. The miners readily 
paid this because they found that the express company 
did convey their letters more rapidly and securely than the 
post office at that time, and they were willing to pay an 
extra rate for their security. In like manner, during many 
years, in some of our great cities, private companies un- 
dertook to deliver local letters more promptly than the 
post office, and these were at one time largely patronized 
by those who wanted a quick delivery. But over the 
whole country it is doubtful if the mails would be delivered 
with the same general uniformity of speed and regularity 
and cheapness by private persons as by the government ; 
and this is the legitimate excuse for the existence of the 
post office. 

33. The fact that we assign to the government some 
duties, therefore, which private citizens might perform in a 
better manner than the government, does not prove that the 
government ought to extend such operations and intrude 
into the great field of private enterprise. And yet, you 
must know, there is a constant tendency toward such 
extension. Thus it is asserted by many persons that the 
Federal Government ought to own and carry on the tele- 
graph lines, and even the railroads. Various reasons lead 
men to this belief — such as abuse of power by corpora- 
tions ; impatience under delays or inconveniences ; disap- 



SOME OTHER FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT 23 

pointed business rivalries ; hopes of gain by selling out 
at a large price to the government ; a liking for grand 
operations, such as governments alone can carry on ; and 
a vague belief that the government can really transact 
business better than private persons, which is not true, as 
a long experience shows. 

34. I give you here the main reasons why a government 
should be strictly confined to its proper functions, and 
why we should oppose all attempts to impose upon it 
other duties which lie outside of these: 1st. It would 
have to increase very greatly its staff of servants, which 
increases the patronage, which means the power of brib- 
ery possessed by the rulers, and their means of corrupt- 
ing the people, and thus encroaching upon our liberties. 
2d. It would greatly increase the amount of money to 
be handled by the government, and thus make the posses- 
sion of power tempting to bad men, which is another means 
toward the corruption of the people. 3d. It would make 
the people dependent, and deprive them of incentives to 
ingenuity and enterprise, and lead them to look to some 
power outside of themselves for the management of their 
daily lives. All these are serious evils ; and if we had to 
choose, it would be far wiser to turn the post office, roads, 
lighthouses, the public education, and all other matters of 
that kind over to private enterprise, than to allow the gov- 
ernment to assume still other functions, such as owning 
and managing telegraphs and railroads. 

35. It is of the utmost importance to the perpetuity of 
free government that the people should be left to do for 
themselves whatever they can, without the interference of 
the government. Free government is not, at any given 
time, the most convenient, as I shall show you farther on ; 
but it has this transcendent merit, that under it alone can 



24 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

abuses be cured without revolution or the disorganization 
of society. For instance, the people have been for some 
years agitated about the abuse of power by railroads and 
other great corporations. We shall remedy this class of 
evils, slowly no doubt, but surely, by laws, and without 
revolution ; but in a despotic government the railroad 
question would perhaps upset the government, and would 
at any rate become mixed up with the question of the ex- 
istence of the government itself. We in the United States 
may not, at any time, have all the physical conveniences 
which we might have for a while if the government did 
everything for us ; but we have the means of peaceful 
progress, the certainty that we shall slowly but surely 
solve all the difficulties which press upon all civilized 
nations alike, and solve them without revolution — which 
means without permanent injury to society. 

VI 

OF THE USEFULNESS AND THE INCONVENIENCE OF 
FREE GOVERNMENT 

36. What we call a free government, one in which the 
people rule, and in which much is left to the people, has 
therefore this extremely important advantage, that it forces 
them to be self -helpful ; and obtains peaceful progress, not 
by the costly and after all ineffective interference of the 
government, but by the only permanent means, the deter- 
mination of the people themselves. Thus government " of 
the people, for the people, and by the people," educates a 
nation in courage, enterprise, a strong sense of duty, self- 
restraint, the habit of obeying law, and the capacity and 
readiness to act together for public ends. Free government 
is a school of all the manly virtues. 



USEFULNESS OF FREE GOVERNMENT 25 

37. It works also another, equally important result: 
It maintains peace amid change, and allows the reform of 
evils without resort to revolution ; because where the whole 
people take part in electing their rulers and lawmakers, all 
feel equally bound by the laws at any time enacted, and if 
any feel these laws to be oppressive, they get patience from 
the knowledge that open discussion will in time bring its 
remedies. Under a despotic government some wrongs can 
be righted only by violence and revolution. Under a free 
government like ours, all zurongs cci7i be righted by argit- 
vient. Hence the freest government is likely to be the 
most peaceable, orderly, and permanent. 

38. Free government is troublesome to its citizens be- 
cause it imposes upon every man duties of a public nature, 
to which he must give time and intelligent thought. In 
the measure that all the people thus give up time and 
thought to their political duties, in that measure will their 
government be justly and honestly administered. Gross 
selfishness, such as leads men to abandon their political 
and public duties in order to devote their whole time and 
energies to their own affairs or pleasures, is therefore a 
dangerous vice in the citizen of a republic. 

39. A despotism, like that from which France so long 
suffered, is easily endurable to the meaner kind of men, 
because it saves them from thought upon matters concern- 
ing the general welfare. A despotic ruler, moreover, is 
apt to attend carefully to the minor conveniences of the 
people : he provides public amusements for them ; regulates 
arbitrarily the price of provisions ; prohibits monopolies 
— except those he himself and his friends enjoy; and in 
many ways does for them, wastefully, and with their 
money — for of course he has none of his own — what 
they ought to do and could do more cheaply for them- 



26 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

selves. Meantime he thus makes them incapable of act- 
ing intelligently and effectively in great perils, disables 
them from remedying abuses, demoralizes them by en- 
couraging their selfishness and love of pleasure, and thus 
prepares the way, logically, for some such great and dis- 
graceful catastrophe as left France humiliated, burdened 
with debt, with the loss of a large part of her territory, 
and, worse than all, with a population largely unaccus- 
tomed to self-government, after eighteen years of what a 
multitude of shortsighted people pronounced a " splendid 
reign.' ' 

40. A wise and beneficent despot may for a time greatly 
and rapidly increase the material welfare of a people ; by 
his power to command obedience, he may, if he lives long 
enough, impose upon them new habits of thought and 
action, or even a different civilization ; but it is always at 
the expense of qualities which are absolutely necessary to 
the life of a nation, and with the result of leaving his sub- 
jects unable to maintain the existence of society if the des- 
potic head should be suddenly removed, or if the state 
should suffer serious attack from without. Doubtless the 
Incas greatly benefited the Peruvians, among whom they 
introduced some important arts of civilization. But under 
the despotic rule they established, a handful of Spaniards 
overthrew the government, and when they had conquered 
the rulers, the people, too long the subjects of despotism, 
lay prostrate at their feet. 

41. Thus nations, as well as individuals, need liberty and 
responsibility to make them strong. A boy who is coddled 
by his parents, who sits behind the stove in winter when 
others are playing in the snow, who lies late abed and 
has his pockets full of candy, who must not go into the 
water until he can swim, and whose precious life and 



USEFULNESS OF FREE GOVERNMENT 2j 

health are the objects of his own and his parents' inces- 
sant solicitude, may look with pity upon his neighbor, who 
runs about barefooted, gets up early to feed the cows, has 
few clothes and no candv, and must work for his food. 
But all human experience and history show that the hardier 
boy has by far the better chance of becoming a useful man, 
and making an honorable figure in the world. His early 
life has been full of inconveniences, and perhaps hard- 
ships ; but the overcoming of these has hardened his frame, 
trained his will, strengthened the moral side of his nature, 
and prepared him thus to withstand trials and temptations 
under which his tenderly nurtured neighbor would sink. 

42. I wish you to take notice that there are in every free 
country persons to whom the duties and responsibilities of 
citizenship are irksome ; and who, too ignorant or thought- 
less to see the evil results of dependence on a government, 
seek to avoid temporary evils and inconveniences by dele- 
gating to the government greater powers, and seeking to 
establish it as a kind of earthly Providence, to guard their 
private affairs, and make their lives easier. 

43. Thus we in this country do not yet know how best 
to control railroads and other corporations so as to guard 
the general interest effectively ; and some people think to 
cure this evil by having the government own and manage 
them. 

44. There is no doubt that the creation and encourage- 
ment of what are called "limited liability" corporations 
have opened the door to some grave abuses, mainly because 
legislative bodies have ignorantly and imprudently given 
undue powers and privileges to such corporations. But with 
patience and larger experience these evils will be cured. 
There has grown up in recent years a strong disposition 
to hold great corporations to a stricter accountability, and 



28 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

to avoid imprudent grants to them, and to require of them 
more rigid conditions, beneficial to the public ; and in that 
direction lies true reform. 

45. But there are citizens who believe that a short and 
easy way would be to cause the Federal Government to buy 
and manage all the railroads. To avoid temporary abuses 
or inconveniences they would put the transportation of 
products and passengers, on the whole the most vast and 
important business in the country, into the hands of the 
government. They forget that : 1st. No government trans- 
acts even its legitimate work, as that of carrying on a war, 
either economically or efficiently. 2d. If the government 
owned and managed the railroads, the millions of men 
employed upon them would have their liberty of con- 
tract seriously abridged, because the first prudent act of a 
government engaged in the railroad business would-be to 
require its men to enlist for a fixed term, and to subject 
themselves to regulations military in their character. 3d. 
To put the vast business of transportation into the hands 
of the government would be to give it the means of cor- 
rupting and abusing the people ; to give to an ambitious 
and unscrupulous ruler enormous power for this evil end, 
sure to be dangerously misused, and, after all, to secure no 
reforms which cannot be got, and are already slowly but 
surely got, by other and safer means. 

46. Take notice that the plan of obliging the men en- 
gaged in the transportation and telegraph services to enlist 
for fixed terms under martial law — as soldiers do in the 
regular army — has already been urged and discussed in 
this country. Government ownership of railroads and tele- 
graphs would bring this about very quickly and necessarily. 

47. As to the government ownership of the telegraph 
systems of the country, which also finds favor, there is an 



DIFFERENT PARTS OF A GOVERNMENT 29 

additional and serious objection, in that it would give to 
the party in power entire control over the public news, and 
enable a weak or an unscrupulous ruler to poison the very 
sources of public opinion by giving false or partial reports 
of passing events, thus making the people incapable, in an 
important emergency, of forming a just opinion of the con- 
duct or misconduct of their rulers. 



VII 

OF THE DIFFERENT PARTS OF A GOVERNMENT 

48. Government falls naturally into three different 
departments : That part which makes the laws ; that 
which executes them, or carries them into effect; and 
that which administers justice, or interprets the laws 
between man and man. 

49. In a rudely organized society or tribe, the chief or 
head man assumes all these functions : he gives orders, 
which are the laws ; he enforces these orders ; and he sits 
as judge in disputes between members of the tribe. Under 
any despotism, the ruler exercises the same powers as the 
chief of a tribe of savages ; but necessarily he acts through 
agents, his favorites, who make life still less tolerable to 
the subjects. 

50. In order to maintain a free or popular government, 
it is necessary that these powers shall be lodged in differ- 
ent hands ; that the body which makes the laws shall have 
nothing to do with their enforcement ; and that the judges 
shall be a body independent of both the legislative and the 
executive branches of the government. Where this divi- 
sion of powers is well established and carefully guarded, 
if at the same time the nation has sufficient intelligence 



30 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

and public spirit to hold the rulers it chooses to a strict 
account, 3. people's liberties are reasonably secure, and they 
are able to make their government as honest and efficient 
as they please to have it. For at the elections they are 
able to remove those legislators who enacted bad laws, or 
that executive officer who carelessly or wickedly failed in 
the proper enforcement of the laws. Thus the people not 
only rule, but are easily able to distinguish where the 
fault of misgovernment lies, and to apply the remedy. In 
our own government, this great division of powers is very 
clearly made : in the Federal Government, Congress enacts 
the laws, but cannot execute or enforce them ; the Presi- 
dent enforces the laws, but he does not make them ; and 
the courts of the United States construe the Federal laws 
and apply them in disputed cases ; — and the same distri- 
bution of powers is made by State constitutions. 

There is a still further subdivision, which is of equal 
importance to good government, and which is called 
Decentralization. 

VIII 
OF DECENTRALIZATION 

51. It has been found advisable, by experience, still 
further to subdivide the powers necessarily intrusted to 
government; to limit the general government to the per- 
formance of certain offices or duties which apply equally 
to all parts of the nation ; and to confide other powers 
and duties, having only a local application, to subordinate, 
but in their sphere independent governments. 

52. Thus, in our own system, the Federal Government 
at Washington exercises powers very strictly limited, 
others being left to the State governments ; and the State 



DECENTRALIZATION 3 1 

governments in turn delegate certain powers to the county 
and even to the township governments. 

53. This subdivision of power and authority is called 
Decentralization; and experience has shown that this 
political device is of extreme importance, for two reasons : 
First, it is a powerful and the best means of training a 
people to efficient political action and the art of self- 
government ; and, second, it presents constant and impor- 
tant barriers to the encroachment of rulers upon the rights 
and liberties of the nation, every subdivision forming a 
stronghold of resistance by the people against unjust or 
wicked rulers. 

54. Take notice that any system of government is 
excellent in the precise degree in which it naturally trains 
the people in political independence, and habituates them 
to take an active part in governing themselves. Whatever 
plan of government does this in a high degree is good — 
no matter what it may be called ; that which avoids this is 
necessarily bad. 

55. It is a fault in the British system of government 
that the Parliament interferes too much in local affairs ; 
and it is one of the great causes of the chronic discontent 
among the people of Ireland, that the management of their 
purely local affairs has been so largely kept from them and 
in the hands of the supreme authority in London. It has 
been one of the greatest obstacles to the maintenance in 
France of a true republic, that there the central govern- 
ment largely selects and appoints the local officials in the 
provinces. 

56. If the President of the United States should appoint 
not only the postmasters and the revenue and law officers 
who are properly a part of the Federal executive, but also 
the governors of States, the mayors of cities, the super- 



32 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

visors of counties, and even the justices of the peace and 
local police, — you need not think profoundly to see that 
independence and free government would be impossible 
under a system which thus removed the pettiest local 
officers from the censure and condemnation of their neigh- 
bors, and made them responsible only to the distant chief 
authority at Washington. The first time we had a bad 
man in the presidential chair he might be tempted by the 
favorable circumstances to play the part of Napoleon, and 
make himself master of the nation. Nor could the people, 
without great difficulty, and probably revolution, resist 
him. 

57. To make liberty secure, the powers and responsibili- 
ties of the executive ought to be plainly limited and de- 
fined ; and ought to be such, and no greater, that even a 
bad man in the executive chair could not, during the term 
for which he is chosen, do serious detriment to the repub- 
lic — without the general consent of the people. For con- 
slitntions are made to guard against bad officers, just as 
laws are or ought to be made, not to interfere with the good, 
but to restrain the vicious and ignorant. 



IX 

OF THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE EXECUTIVE 

58. The executive is the head and ruler of the political 
community. He is so called because he executes or en- 
forces the laws which the legislative body enacts. With 
us the President is the chief executive of the United 
States ; the governor is the executive head of a State ; and 
the mayor is, or ought to be, the executive head of a city. 

59. Large powers are usually, and ought always to be, 



RESPONSIBILITY OF THE EXECUTIVE 33 

given to an executive or ruler; these powers should be, 
and in constitutional governments are, strictly limited ; 
but within the limits fixed in the constitution the ruler 
should have the utmost discretion, for thus only can he 
be held responsible for faithfully executing the duties of 
his office. 

60. Responsibility can never be greater than the author- 
ity given. Thus you can see that to tell a general to 
win a battle, and leave him to make his own plans, is to 
fix upon him a large responsibility, because his authority 
is practically unlimited. But to order him to win a battle 
according to certain plans imposed on him by a war board 
at a distance would be to cramp and limit his powers, and 
in the same measure to lessen his responsibility ; for, if 
he were beaten, he might justly say that the plan of action 
in accordance with which he was compelled to fight was 
not the best, and that defeat was not his fault, but the 
fault of the council which impaired his liberty of action ; 
hence he would probably not exert himself to the utmost. 

61. One of the most vicious and dangerous defects in a 
scheme of government, therefore, is a mixed and ill-defined 
responsibility. Thus if the executive is intrusted to two 
or more persons, confusion and corruption are sure to 
result, because it is then impossible to fix the blame for 
misconduct upon any one officer. A board or commis- 
sion, as an executive composed of a number of persons is 
called, is certain to be both inefficient and corrupt. This 
is because it is more difficult to bring several persons to a 
prompt decision than one ; and because the blame for 
inefficiency or misconduct is shifted from one to the other, 
to the confusion of the public, which can not tell whom 
to blame. 

62. It is another vicious defect to take away from the 

NORD. — 3 



34 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

executive head the appointment of his subordinates, for he 
can not justly be held responsible for the conduct of per- 
sons selected by others than himself ; and being deprived 
of what is of the essence of just authority, he is pretty 
certain to lose that strong interest in the conduct of affairs 
which he is compelled to feel when the eyes of the peo- 
ple are fixed upon him alone, and he in his single person 
is held responsible for the administration of the public 
business. 

63. In a well-ordered free government, therefore, a 
single executive head, being chosen for a specified time, 
and having duties and powers clearly defined and limited, 
ought to possess the power to appoint and remove his sub- 
ordinates at will. In that case he can be justly held 
responsible by the people for the management of affairs. 

64. In our own Federal Government, the Senate has an 
advisory power in regard to appointments made by the 
President {but none as to removals) ; and to that extent the 
Senate is a part of the executive. This power was given 
in the Constitution, because those who framed that instru- 
ment were more fearful of the tyranny of a despotic execu- 
tive than of the worse, because less responsible, tyranny 
of a numerous body like the Senate ; and believed it 
necessary to guard with especial care against usurpation 
of power by the President. If they lived to this day, they 
would see that it becomes constantly more desirable to 
fix responsibility for misgovernment upon a single person, 
in order that the people may more easily understand upon 
whom and how they ought to visit punishment and thus 
remedy abuses. 

65. It is useful to repeat to you that the powers and 
authority of the President under the Federal Constitution 
are so strictly limited that even the worst man in that office 



RESPONSIBILITY OF THE EXECUTIVE 35 

can not, withottt exposing himself to impeachment and re- 
moval, cause serious harm to the republic, except in one 
case. 

66. If the injurious or unconstitutional course of a 
President has the general consent of the people ; if there 
is no vigilant and outspoken opposition party ; if public 
opinion is silent or supine, — in that case an unscrupulous 
President may of course safely do what he will. The Con- 
stitution does not enforce itself ; it depends for its restrain- 
ing force upon the watchfulness of the citizens ; and it is 
not an idle saying that " Eternal vigilance is the price 
of liberty." Hence the importance, in a free state, of 
political parties, and especially of a watchful and vigorous 
minority, which is usually called the opposition party. 
Men in power are very apt to go to extremes, and to dis- 
regard, in the eager pursuit of their partisan ambition, 
even constitutional limitations. The duty and importance 
of an opposition party is to expose to the voters such mis- 
conduct, and thus to alarm and arouse public opinion. 
There have been several instances in our history where 
only the vigorous and even fierce and defiant opposition of 
a minority has prevented a party in power from injurious 
and sometimes unconstitutional acts. Such was the at- 
tempt in 1 874-1 875 of the leaders of the party then in 
power to pass a law authorizing the President to proclaim 
martial law in certain parts of the Union, and to do this on 
his own judgment and though the country was at peace. 
Only a skillfully led and vigilant minority, by its tenacious 
resistance in Congress, and loud appeals to the people, pre- 
vented this from succeeding. 

67. It is important for you to bear in mind that if the 
mass of the voters of both parties — as shown by the 
action of their representatives in Congress and by their 



36 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

own consent or silence at home — are agreed upon a 
policy, even if that is unwise, or contrary to the traditional 
policy of the country, or even clearly unconstitutional, a 
President may do what he pleases in such a matter. 

68. Thus the President, in 1898, determined, without 
consulting the people, and without the warrant of the plat- 
form on which he was elected, to make an important 
change in the character and career of the country. It had 
been a continental nation, with a homogeneous and gen- 
erally intelligent population. He determined on the an- 
nexation of Hawaii, the mass of whose population was 
notoriously incompetent, by racial diversities, ignorance, 
and easy corruptibility, to perform the duties of American 
citizenship. If he had found himself vigorously opposed 
in Congress and by the people, he would not have ventured 
upon such a policy. But he had the support of the leaders 
of both parties in Congress, and his policy met with but 
trifling and perfunctory protest from a small part of the 
citizens. There was, therefore, nothing to prevent his 
going on ; nor under similar circumstances of general pop- 
ular acquiescence would a President determined for any 
reason on a clearly unauthorized policy need to hesitate 
to assume what in such case would be dictatorial powers. 
If the people agree, or if they silently consent, a President 
may safely do what he wishes. 

You see in this the importance of political parties, of 
which I will next speak. 

X 

OF POLITICAL PARTIES 

69. In a free state there are usually two political parties. 

70. These may have varying names, but their motives 



POLITICAL PARTIES 37 

are independent of names ; and it may be said that one of 
the two great parties in a free state, if they are real parties, 
is composed of men who desire change, and the other of 
men who cling to that which is. 

71. Party government is necessary in a free state. The 
organization of political parties is the only means by which 
the sense of the people upon questions of public policy can 
be got at elections ; and by party government only can 
responsibility be fixed upon political leaders, so that these 
may receive approval or condemnation. A non-partisan 
government is the dream of weak and amiable men ; it be- 
longs to an ideal condition, in which all men shall be un- 
selfish and sincerely desirous of the public good. In the 
present condition of mankind, a non-partisan government 
— one in which the leaders of both or all political parties 
share — is only an admirable and effective device to conceal 
maladministration and corruption, because it becomes then 
the interest of the leaders of both parties to cover up 
wrong. Non-partisan boards are a favorite device of 
political jobbers everywhere. 

72. A large part of the voters in every free state, by rea- 
son of ignorance, or prejudice, or devotion to favorite party 
leaders, follow the party with which they have long acted, 
even though that has, through long possession of power, 
become ineffective or even corrupt. An increasing num- 
ber of American citizens, however, act independently of 
party lines and vote with that party which in their judg- 
ment promises the best policy for their country, and thus 
changes of administration in the State, city, or Federal Gov- 
ernment are brought about naturally, and without violence. 
You ought in this way to be an independent voter, because 
thus only can you fulfill the true duty of a citizen in casting 
his vote. 



38 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

73. A political party appeals to the citizens with what 
we call a platform, which means a statement of the policy 
it desires to see carried out. Necessarily it also nominates 
men to enforce this policy in case they are elected by the 
people. 

74. If party leaders always declared their opinions and 
intentions openly and honestly, and if they nominated only 
their most capable men, the duty of the citizen would be 
very simple. But a political platform is often an ingenious 
jumble of words, intended to attract men of opposite senti- 
ments, and naturally candidates nominated on such plat- 
forms are not likely to be men famous for positive principles. 
In such cases the citizen has to choose the less of two evils. 
Reform of evils is slow work in a free state, because the 
mass of the people are engrossed in their own affairs, and 
conservative in their habits of thought, which means that 
they dislike great and sudden changes, even if these ap- 
pear to be improvements. This spirit is an admirable one : 
though often inconvenient and sometimes costly, it gives 
stability to political and social institutions ; and stability is 
a main condition of progress. 

XI 

WHO VOTE. AND WHY 

75. Minors, paupers, and insane persons have in gen- 
eral no vote in the United States, and in most of the States 
women also are excluded from voting. 

76. In some countries the electoral franchise, as the 
right to vote is called, is still further limited to persons 
who can read and write, or to persons possessing a speci- 
fied amount of property, or paying a certain annual rent 
for the premises they occupy. 



WHO VOTE, AND WHY 39 

JJ. Property qualifications originally obtained in a num- 
ber of our States, but they have been almost entirely 
abolished. 

78. An educational qualification is in force in some 
States. Where public or free schools are made accessible 
to the whole population, there is no injustice in requiring 
that only those shall vote who can read. 

79. Minors, or persons under age, and paupers are not 
allowed to vote because they are dependent ; and it is pre- 
sumable that they would vote under coercion, and not 
according to their independent judgment. Moreover, a 
person incapable of managing his private business ought 
not to have a voice or influence in public affairs. It is 
probable that women have been denied the vote for the 
same reason — because the greater part of them were in a 
dependent condition, and the law took no note of excep- 
tions in their case. 

80. General manhood suffrage, which prevails in the 
United States, is required by justice, and is necessary to 
the perpetuation of peace in a community or nation. By 
his vote each man has his influence upon those affairs 
which are common to all the citizens ; if he is outvoted, he 
is still satisfied, because it was his hope to outvote his 
opponents, and it is his hope to have the majority with him 
at another time. 

81. It is sometimes urged that only those who possess 
property ought to be allowed to vote taxes and appropria- 
tions for public purposes. This proposition has an appear- 
ance of justice; but besides being generally impracticable, 
it rests upon a wrong view of society. It supposes a 
degree of meanness and bad spirit in the poor, and of 
intelligence and liberality in the wealthy, which we do not 
find in actual life ; and it would facilitate a division of men 



40 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

into classes, the poor arrayed against the rich, which, if it 
existed, would make free government impossible. 

82. Suppose even that the poor were not only the most 
numerous, but also the least intelligent and the most 
selfish, which is not true ; it is still a fact that the rich and 
intelligent possess great influence over their poorer neigh- 
bors, by reason of their greater means and knowledge, 
which it is their duty to use for the general good. Any 
regulation which would make it unnecessary for them to 
use this influence, or to take that part in political affairs 
which is necessary to give them their natural and just 
predominance (arising from the possession of wealth and 
intelligence), would be an injury to the commonwealth. 

83. If general manhood suffrage anywhere leads the 
poor to vote money out of the pockets of the rich, waste- 
fully, or for needless or corrupt purposes, the reason is 
that the rich have abdicated their proper place and influ- 
ence in political society, and have selfishly given them- 
selves to mere money-getting or a life of pleasure, by 
which they endanger not only themselves, but, what is of 
greater consequence, the stability of the community. It is 
an additional argument in favor of general suffrage if it 
compels the wealthy and intelligent, as an act of unavoid- 
able self-defense, to exercise that influence in political 
affairs which justly and naturally belongs to them ; and if 
it reminds them that their prosperous fortunes bring with 
them duties and responsibilities. 

84. Take notice that a free state or republic can not 
remain prosperous if the more fortunate of its citizens 
withdraw themselves from political duties to devote their 
lives to money-getting or to pleasure. Take notice, too, 
that when a rich man complains that his poorer neighbors 
— many of whom he probably employs — vote against his 



WHAT OFFICERS SHOULD NOT BE ELECTED 4 1 

interests, you will find that he conducts himself toward 
them selfishly, and thus loses that influence which his 
wealth naturally assures him if he rightly uses it. 

85. Under our system the States have the power of 
declaring, each for itself, which of the citizens shall vote ; 
being prohibited only from excluding persons on account 
of race, color, or previous condition of slavery. The Fed- 
eral Government, however, provides a uniform law for the 
naturalization of foreigners. 



XII 

WHAT OFFICERS SHOULD NOT BE ELECTED 

86. It is a common complaint of busy citizens that 
" politics " takes up too much time, and elections are too 
frequent, and besides that, not interesting. The main, and 
indeed almost the sole, reason of this complaint is that we 
have in almost all the States and cities far too many elect- 
ive offices. The citizens are compelled, by a very injuri- 
ous custom and law, to vote in State and city elections for 
a long list of officials, about whose character and abilities 
they are unable to inform themselves. They must vote 
therefore ignorantly and blindly ; and this injurious system, 
which now obtains in almost all our States and cities, on 
the one hand deprives our political struggles in these 
localities of interest to conscientious and intelligent citi- 
zens, and on the other strengthens the evil tendency in 
voters to support blindly the party they have been accus- 
tomed to act with — of " sticking to the party, right or 
wrong." This gives corrupt or trading political leaders 
their main chance, and creates " machines." 

87. hi order to enable the people to take an intelligent and 



42 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

real interest in politics, it is necessary that they shall have to 
elect but feiv persons. 

88. The persons who compose the lawmaking body 
ought to be elected, and at frequent intervals, in order 
that they may come fresh from the people, and know their 
will ; also, the lawmaking body should be numerous, so 
that responsibility may be more easily fixed upon each 
member by his constituents. 

89. The executive head of the community, be he presi- 
dent, governor, or mayor, ought to be elected by the peo- 
ple, and probably at less frequent intervals than the 
legislative body, as the Federal Constitution provides 
for the President. Thus the government gains in stability 
of purpose, without danger to liberty. 

90. The judges ought in no case to be elected, 
but should be appointed for life or good behavior 
by the executive. Thus only can the majesty and dig- 
nity of the courts of justice be maintained. It is absurd 
and wicked to degrade a judge by forcing him to appeal to 
the voters for election ; because justice has nothing to do 
with political parties, and ought to be beyond the influence 
of partisan strife. A court does not deal with policies, but 
with principles. 

91. It is sometimes urged that a president or governor 
or mayor may appoint an improper person as judge, and 
this is true ; but even a bad man, placed for life in an ex- 
alted and entirely independent position, is likely to conduct 
himself well, as many instances prove ; and an executive 
officer, though he might make a careless or bad appoint- 
ment to a temporary office, will think twice before he 
selects for a life office, so important as a judgeship, a man 
whose career, if it should be disgraceful, would be a con- 
stant reproach to the man who created him judge. 



WHAT OFFICERS SHOULD NOT BE ELECTED * 43 

92. The officers subordinate to the executive ought not to 
be elected, but appointed by their chief. Otherwise there is 
confusion in the government, because, chief and subordi- 
nates deriving their authority from the same source, elec- 
tion by the people, there arises necessarily division of 
responsibility, and the public business is left undone or is 
corruptly done, as we see in many States and cities. 

93. The provisions of our Federal Constitution are very 
wise upon this point. The President may appoint and re- 
move even so low a grade of officers as postmasters and 
minor revenue officers. It has sometimes been proposed 
to make the place of postmaster elective — but to do so 
would be to make these officers irresponsible ; the Presi- 
dent could not remove them .summarily for incompetency 
or corruption, because they wpuld hold their places inde- 
pendently of him, and from the same source which gave 
him his, so you can easily see that the Post Office Depart- 
ment would be exposed to the grossest mismanagement 
and corruption. 

94. What is true of this is true of all the executive de- 
partments. No subordinate officers charged with enfor- 
cing the laws ought to be elected, because they would thus 
be independent of their chief, be he president, governor, 
or mayor. The business of a government does not differ 
in this respect from that of a merchant or -a railroad com- 
pany ; and no merchant could successfully conduct his 
business if his clerks, bookkeeper, and porters were ap- 
pointed and removable, not by himself, but by his 
customers. 

95. But in most of our States this serious blunder is 
made ; and the people are obliged to elect many minor 
executive officers, and even those persons who form the 
cabinet of the governor ; and, as though to breed the ex- 



44 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

treme of confusion, in some States these subordinate offi- 
cers are chosen at different times from their nominal chief, 
and are thus not merely independent of his will, but often 
his political opponents, disagreeing with his policy, and 
naturally inclined to make him inefficient by opposing or 
carelessly carrying out his orders. 

96. This foolish system makes government difficult, 
favors corruption, and screens inefficiency, because it 
divides responsibility among many persons ; and it is the 
chief cause of almost all the misgovernment from which 
so many of our States and cities have suffered and are still 
suffering. 

97. It seems to have been the device of ingenious politi- 
cal demagogues, helped, as these usually are, by well-mean- 
ing but ignorant people, who were taken with the plausible 
appeal that to make the people elect all their officers would 
be to give them more power over public affairs, — whereas 
it really gives them less. So long as it is tolerated in any 
part of our political system, so long the baser sort of poli- 
ticians will continue to impose their " slates " upon the 
voters, disable these from exercising an intelligent control 
over their rulers, and make government a mockery. 

98. The people, busy with their own affairs, have not 
leisure to scrutinize the characters of a number of candi- 
dates presented to them on the same ticket ; the press, 
occupied with a great variety of public interests and ques- 
tions, is equally disabled. Every man, of perhaps a dozen 
or twenty on a ticket, uses his influence to elect all the 
others, bad and good, as well as himself, and thus the 
popular vote is stultified. See how different is the case in 
a presidential election. There the people are asked to con- 
sider but three offices — those of President, Vice President, 
and member of Congress ; and the character, abilities, 



POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS 45 

political principles, and history of the candidates for these 
three positions receive the closest scrutiny from the press 
and public speakers during the canvass, so that every fault 
or evidence of unfitness is brought to light, and the people 
have a fair chance to vote intelligently. The result is that 
in presidential elections the greatest interest is taken by 
the people. 

99. Only the chief executive officer, in the executive 
branch of the government, ought to be elected by the people ; 
and upon him should be placed the grave responsibility of 
selecting the subordinates by zvhose help he is to carry on 
the public business. If then he fail, he and his party may 
be held responsible by the people, and removed from 
power at the next election. 



XIII 
OF POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS 

100. A written political constitution is the instrument 
or compact in which the rights of the people who adopt it, 
and the powers and responsibilities of their rulers, are de- 
scribed and fixed. 

101 . The chief object of a constitution is to limit the poiver 
of majorities. 

102. A moment's reflection will tell you that mere 
majority rule, unlimited, would be the most grinding of 
tyrannies ; the minority at any time would be mere slaves, 
whose rights to life, property, and comfort no one who 
chose to join the majority would be bound to respect. 

103. It is the object of constitutions to protect minori- 
ties in certain common rights, and to restrain the power 
of majorities, who may do, or enact, or cause to be done, 



46 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

only what in any case the constitution permits ; and have 
no right, no matter how numerically strong they may be, 
to deprive the minority of those rights which the constitu- 
tion secures to all the citizens. 

104. Out of this thought grow all the provisions of a 
political constitution : for instance, under our own, no 
majority can deprive a criminal of trial by jury, or elect its 
candidates for longer than a prescribed term, or deprive 
the minority of life or property by unequal laws, or enact 
laws contrary to the provisions or outside of the limitations 
of the Constitution. 

105. To the Supreme Court is given the authority to de- 
cide — but only on an appeal by a citizen in a bona fide or 
actual case — whether an act of legislation is or is not in 
harmony with the supreme law, the Constitution. You can 
easily see that such a court of final appeal is necessary in 
order to prevent unending disputes between citizens on the 
question whether a law is in accord with the Constitution. 
You should bear in mind that the Supreme Court cannot 
of its own motion take up such a question. The court 
" must be moved," as the saying is, in this case as in all 
others. 

106. It is a merit in any constitution to be brief, and to 
state only general rules or principles, to be applied practi- 
cally by the lawmaking power; because thus this instru- 
ment, which ought to be but rarely and cautiously altered, 
is more elastic, and more easily applied to changing cir- 
cumstances and to a great variety of life. It is the proper 
function of a constitution, for instance, to declare the term 
during which a president, a member of Congress, or a gov- 
ernor shall hold office, for that may be and ought to be a 
permanent regulation ; but it would be an error to fix in the 
constitution the amount of salary an officer ought to receive, 



POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS 47 

or even to prohibit the reelection of an officer, for cir- 
cumstances may occur making it expedient to reelect. 
It has become a tradition having the force of a constitu- 
tional provision that the President shall not be chosen for 
a third term. The example set by General Washington, 
in this respect, is likely to be followed ; for if any Presi- 
dent desired a third term, this would be thought proof of 
inordinate and dangerous ambition in him, rendering him 
unfit for the office ; and if in such a case a President used 
the power of his patronage to procure a nomination, it 
would be wise to vote against him at every hazard. But 
it is a proper constitutional regulation that the salary of 
the President "shall neither be increased nor diminished" 
during his term. Thus he may not use his great influence 
for his personal benefit. Just as important is the provision 
that the salaries of the Federal Judges " shall not be 
diminished during their continuance in office," which pro- 
tects their independence against possible partisan attacks. 
It is proper that the Constitution should prohibit human 
slavery ; but it is better to leave to the province of ordinary 
laws not only the penalties for smuggling, theft, etc., but 
also the declaration of what constitutes these and other 
crimes — except treason. This is a purely political offense, 
whose definition ought to be immutably fixed, as it is in 
our Federal Constitution, and not left to the political pas- 
sions of any period. But notice that Congress, in the 
Constitution, is wisely charged to declare the penalty of 
treason. Again, it is proper that the Constitution should 
create a supreme court, as ours does ; but it would be 
unwise that it should also fix the number of the judges or 
the location of minor courts, because as the country grows 
these may have to be increased ; and accordingly our Con- 
stitution leaves to Congress the authority to do this. 



48 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

XIV 

OF THE LEGISLATIVE OR LAWMAKING BRANCH 
OF GOVERNMENT 

107. Legislative bodies have usually two Houses, as 
in our Congress and State legislatures. In the Federal 
Congress, the senators are chosen by the legislatures of 
the different States, and are supposed to represent the 
States, while the representatives are chosen directly by 
the people in the districts. 

108. Action in a lawmaking body means change ; and 
laws ought to be changed seldom, and never without full 
discussion and consideration. 

109. All the arrangements of modern legislative bodies 
in free nations are wisely made to secure these ends. 
Thus we have two Houses, each of which must separately 
discuss and agree to a bill before it can become a law ; 
one of those Houses chosen by a different set of electors 
or for a longer term than the other; and we have the 
executive veto — which, bear in mind, is solely to ask the 
two Houses to reconsider their bill, and not at all to ob- 
struct or abrogate the law — for when it once becomes a 
law in spite of his veto, the executive is bound to enforce 
it. To the same end are all the Parliamentary rules and 
forms which cause delay in the passage of new laws. 

no. All these are wholesome and necessary checks on 
the lawmaking power. It is therefore a mistake to accuse 
Congress or a State legislature, as inconsiderate people 
sometimes do, of "wasting time in debate." A repre- 
sentative body is never so usefully employed as when 
engaged in discussing the measures before it ; and it is 
never so dangerous to the people as when the majority 



THE LAWMAKING BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT 49 

are strong enough to prevent debate, and pass laws by the 
mere overwhelming force of votes ; because laws so passed, 
without discussion — which means examination — are likely 
to be unwise. 

in. Another reproach which is sometimes cast at our 
legislative bodies is that the ablest men are not chosen to 
seats. But our Congress and legislatures do not pretend 
to be collections of the ablest men in the nation. They 
are representative bodies. Of course you are to under- 
stand that a representative is not a mere delegate to utter 
the voice of his constituents. He is sent to exercise his 
independent judgment on pending questions, and not to 
record what their whims or temporary passions might dic- 
tate. He is their wise man, and not their slave. If the 
people of any district send an unfit or dishonest person, 
that is their risk ; they leave themselves without influence 
in the House. Our Congress does not contain the most 
brilliant men in the nation, nor all the ablest men ; but 
it has a great body of solid ability always, and it is the 
better for containing little genius. 

112. Any one who is familiar with Washington or our 
State capitals knows that constituencies gain immensely in 
political power by sending able men as their representatives, 
and lose when they send demagogues ; and also that the 
influence of a political district may be increased by keep- 
ing the same man a long time in its service. But if the 
people in any district or State choose, negligently or per- 
versely, to send only inexperienced or incapable men, that 
is their business and their loss. If there is anywhere a 
constituency composed mainly of foolish or ignorant or 
misguided people, they have a right to be heard, and their 
folly is likely to be the sooner exploded if it is officially 
displayed in Congress. It happened once, many years 



5<D POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

ago, that a constituency elected to Congress a man who 
had been a prize fighter and the keeper of a gambling 
house. Thereupon many good men unwisely wished the 
House to refuse to receive him. But the House was not 
so foolish ; he had been regularly elected ; no fraud was 
charged ; he was not a confessed lawbreaker ; and he was 
admitted. He served his term, the most carefully dressed 
and the least obtrusive of all the members. He did not 
seek to be reelected ; and his constituents, who had a right 
to select him, saw, no doubt to their disappointment, that 
they had not, during his service, the least influence on 
public affairs. 

XV 

OF TOWN MEETINGS 

113. A town, or township, is the smallest political 
subdivision we recognize. The school district is only to 
regulate the free school. The wards in cities are the 
equivalents of the townships in the country. 

114. When the people of a town (or township, as it is 
called in most of the States) meet annually to discuss the 
affairs of their township, to elect its officers, appropriate 
the money required to carry on its local interests, criticise 
what has been done or left undone in the past year, and to 
declare, after discussion, what shall be done or left undone 
in its local concerns during the year to come — that is a 
Town Meeting. 

115. In such a place each citizen has opportunity to 
bring up such suggestions as he pleases, recommending 
them to the best of his ability ; there alone the people act 
directly, and not by delegates ; and by this democratic 
parliament the local affairs of the township — its roads, 



EDUCATION 5 1 

schools, police, health — can be the most efficiently and 
economically managed. 

1 1 6. The town meetings have been called the nurseries 
of free government, because in them the people learn the 
art of self-government; public spirit is developed, because 
each citizen sees that he may exercise a direct influence 
upon affairs with which he is familiar ; men become skilled 
in debate, and, what is more important, learn to submit 
quietly to the majority when that happens to decide 
against their wishes. In those States where town meetings 
are held, they have always had an important influence 
upon the political character of the population. Unfortu- 
nately, in most of our States the town meeting is unknown 
or has fallen into disuse, and the powers which it ought to 
exercise are scattered among county and district officers, 
to the destruction of one of our most important political 
organizations. 

XVI 

OF EDUCATION 

117. A certain degree of intelligence is necessary to 
make a man a good citizen of a free state. Experience 
has proved that an elementary education is very helpful to 
any one in acquiring this degree of intelligence ; though, 
pray remark, it is not absolutely essential nor absolutely 
effective in all cases — for I have known a man who 
could neither read nor write, but whose good sense and 
sound judgment made him a very admirable citizen ; and I 
have known a number of persons whom even an academic 
or college education has not made his equals. Bear in mind, 
therefore, that what we call education is not the equivalent 
of intelligence, but only a very helpful means to it. 



52 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

1 1 8. An elementary education, also, is absolutely neces- 
sary in these days to enable a man to follow successfully 
any but the very lowest occupations, and its general dif- 
fusion, if it is rightly directed, is therefore a means to 
increase the prosperity of a community, and to prevent 
pauperism as well as crime. 

119. A compulsory school law ought to include the 
children of the wealthy as well as those of the poor ; and 
it ought to compel attendance during about four years — 
say from ten to fourteen. The free schools serve an im- 
portant political use by bringing all the children of the 
community together in a way which makes citizens of all 
classes know each other, and thus prevents that alienation 
of the less from the more prosperous which is a grave 
danger to free government. 

120. Hence the necessity of schools, and the justifica- 
tion of free or public schools. Such a school, maintained 
and inspected by the State, is not a charitable, but a politi- 
cal institution, in the broadest sense, because it is to the 
interest of all the citizens that every child in tJie State shall 
have so much education as shall enable him to follow intelli- 
gently some useful industry. That much the State, in the 
common interest, ought to provide free of charge for all. 
A child who at fourteen has been thoroughly drilled in the 
common school in spelling, reading, and writing, — with so 
much knowledge of good literature as these studies should 
bring with them, — in arithmetic, drawing, elementary 
geography, the history of our own country, and musical 
notation, has received from the State, free of charge, all 
the essentials of education which the general public inter- 
est requires ; and he is then fitted to learn a useful trade, 
or, if the parents have the means and desire, may, at their 
cost, be sent to a higher academy and finally to the college 



EDUCATION 53 

or university. But it is not required for the safety and 
welfare of the State that all the children shall be trained 
or prepared for a business or professional life at the public 
expense. 

121. The conditions of life have very greatly changed in 
this country in the last thirty years. Employment is no 
longer easily got without special preparation ; independ- 
ence in work is hopeless unless the worker has a trade. 
Capable handicraftsmen earn more than a great mass of 
lawyers, clergymen, and clerks ; and what is of equal im- 
portance, the demand for their labor is greater and more 
constant. The master of a good trade has far better pros- 
pects and is much more secure of a comfortable living than 
the great mass of average clerks or professional men. 

122. It is, in the belief of many wise men, a serious 
misfortune that our system of free education has not been 
adapted to the changed circumstances of the country, but 
is carried on still on the old lines, with the addition of 
numbers of studies which have no relation to practical life. 
The increase of these has, as every careful observer knows, 
caused the elementary tuition to be greatly neglected. In- 
deed, many of our colleges have protested that the pupils 
seeking to enter from the higher free academies are glar- 
ingly incompetent in such common branches as spelling 
and simple English composition. 

123. A true and useful system of free education for the 
youth of our country would provide for them a very thor- 
ough training in the strictly elementary branches mentioned 
above, which ought to be completed by the age of fourteen. 
This should then be supplemented by a three years' course 
in thorough handicraft schools, where they should — also at 
the expense of the State if necessary — be taught a trade. 
"A trade is a provision for life," says an old proverb; its 



54 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

possession makes a man independent, and tends therefore 
to make him a good and useful citizen, which is very im- 
portant to the general welfare. The public or free school 
system, as now carried on in most of our States, prepares 
the pupils only for a dependent life in a few vocations 
which are already greatly overcrowded ; and that is a 
serious injury to the commonwealth. 



XVII 

OF TAXES 

124. The tax is what the citizen pays out of his earnings 
or accumulated wealth, or both, to defray the necessary 
cost of protecting his life and property — to enable him to 
produce, accumulate, and exchange with security and con- 
venience, without having to devote a part of his time and 
strength to the labor of defending himself and guarding 
his accumulations against robbers. 

125. This general defense of the lives and property of 
all we delegate to governments ; and it results that when a 
government levies taxes, and yet fails to make life and 
property secure, it fails of its duty, and robs the taxpayer. 

126. Free government is the best, because under it the 
people are able constantly to hold their government 
responsible, and force its officers to fulfill their duties and 
to conduct affairs economically ; or, if they fail, to remove 
them and put more capable men in their places. 

127. We delegate to the government — Federal, State, 
city, or county — also some other duties besides that of 
protecting us in life and property, as I have before told 
you : such as carrying the mails, building and repairing 
roads, the survey of lands, the improvement of harbors, 



TAXES 5 5 

etc. To defray the cost of these undertakings we must 
pay also a general contribution, which is improperly called 
a tax. It is in fact art assessment upon each person, for 
an improvement in the benefits of which he shares ; and 
for this assessment he therefore gets some return in 
conveniences. 

128. But all taxes imposed to defray the cost of pre- 
serving the peace, protecting life and property, dispensing 
justice, and punishing criminals, are loss. They are so 
much taken from the wealth or accumulated savings of a 
nation and flung into the fire. If all men were honest, 
peaceable, and just, there would be no need of govern- 
ments, there would be no taxes, and there would be, there- 
fore, the more wealth, and, of course, the more comfort 
and enjoyment in the world for all. Every thief, burglar, 
robber, murderer, every avaricious, grasping, unjust man, 
in the community, makes it the poorer, and takes some- 
thing from the comfort of every honest man. 

129. Hence the importance that every man shall be a 
good citizen, just to his fellows, and honest in all his deal- 
ings ; hence, too, the importance of a wisely planned system 
of free schools, the maintenance of which tends toward 
virtuous conduct, because one of the main objects of such 
a properly directed system is, or should be, that it will 
better enable men to get an honest living. Also of just, 
equal, and stable laws, because these tend to make men 
just and honest, by removing from them temptations to 
greed and dishonest gains. For taxes are the costly pen- 
alties of vice, ignorance, and selfishness. 

130. Taxes are either direct or indirect, and it may be 
said that direct taxes are those exacted directly from the 
consumer, and indirect those paid by the producer, middle- 
man, or exchanger, who adds them to the price he exacts 



56 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

from his customers, who thus pay indirectly. Bear in 
mind that all taxes are paid by the consumer or user, in the 
end. 

131. Direct taxes are those laid on real estate and on 
personal property in actual use, on incomes, and on polls 
or heads. Our State and other local revenues are all 
raised by direct taxation. 

132. Indirect taxes are duties on goods imported, or on 
goods manufactured for sale at home ; in the latter case 
they are called excises. But you easily see that the mer- 
chant who imports goods, or the manufacturer at home, 
does not submit to the loss of the amount of tax he pays. 
He makes it in either case a charge upon his goods, and 
adds it to their price. Not only that, but, as he must take 
the risk of loss by fire or other accident, or by falling prices 
or a lack of market after the duty or excise is paid, he adds 
a percentage to the price to cover these risks ; for he knows 
that the government will not return him the taxes he has 
paid, no matter if he should entirely lose his goods the day 
after he had paid the tax or duty upon them. 

133. Hence indirect taxes are less economical than 
direct taxes ; they inflict more loss upon the consumer 
compared with the amount of revenue raised. But 
because indirect taxes are paid by the consumer with other 
payments, in small and often insignificant amounts at a 
time, and without the direct intervention of that universally 
disliked personage the taxgatherer, this mode of raising 
revenue has always been a favorite one with our people ; 
and because an indirect tax is thus collected with less fric- 
tion, and can be increased secretly, as it were, and without 
its effect being so immediately and plainly felt by each 
individual taxpayer, it has always been a favorite one with 
governments. 



TAXES 57 

134. The revenues of the Federal Government are 
largely, but not entirely, derived from indirect taxes. 

135. As these are difficult of adjustment and compli- 
cated, their arrangement almost always gives opportunity 
to selfish and scheming persons to impose upon Congress, 
and get it to favor their pursuits either by exemption where 
a tax should be laid, or by laying a tax where the general 
interest requires none, or, finally, by inducing Congress to 
change the duty or tax, either raising or lowering it, by 
which change manufacturers or importers or speculators 
may make extraordinary gains. Thus taxation, whose only 
proper and justifiable end is to " raise" — which means to 
take out of the people's pockets — a certain amount of reve- 
nue for the use of the government, is in this country and 
some others too often misapplied to provide a bounty for 
certain favored pursuits, or to enable influential speculators 
to make unjust gains to the loss and injury of the mass of 
the people, or even, in some cases, to crush an industry by 
a prohibitive tax. 

136. That a government should collect in taxes more 
money than it needs for its proper and economical expen- 
ditures is a gross but not uncommon misuse of the author- 
ity to levy taxes. During a number of years our Federal 
Congress laid upon the people so needless an amount of 
taxes that it received a surplus revenue of more than a 
hundred millions a year. Not only was this great sum 
needlessly taken out of the pockets of the people during 
many years, to their lessened prosperity, but the existence 
of this great surplus in the treasury became the constant 
and notorious cause of wasteful and extravagant expendi- 
ture, and of serious corruption in the public service. Re- 
member that a people invite public robbery and corruption 
who tolerate a " surplus revenue." 



58 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

137. It is another serious evil and oppression if the tax 
system is ill-adjusted, which has long been the case in 
many of our States and in the Federal Government. You 
will see, if you reflect a little, that a man (or a donkey) can 
carry a load with ease and comfort, if it is skillfully adjusted, 
which would be burdensome and exhausting if it were ill- 
adjusted. This is so well understood in our mining regions, 
where heavy loads are transported over difficult roads on 
the backs of animals, that the " packer" is a very neces- 
sary and important man. On his skill depends, as every- 
body there knows, successful transportation of this kind. 
Evidently those selected to frame systems of taxation 
ought to be skillful " packers," and not men ignorant or 
prejudiced, or both. Thus it has been held and practiced 
in some of our States that to " tax everything " was the 
true method, on the ground that thus no one would escape. 
But that is as though one should assume, in packing a 
donkey for a mountain trail, that it was good policy not to 
lay and adjust the load on his back in the way to give the 
burden-bearer the greatest ease, to give him "the best 
chance," as the packers say ; but that the real art of pack- 
ing consisted in hanging some part of the burden on every 
part of his body ; fastening packages to his ears, his neck, 
his legs, on the ground that his burden would be eased by 
such a general distribution. It would then only remain 
that, by way of "surplus revenue," the packer should put 
a stone or other entirely needless additional burden on top 
of all. 

138. Our country is thought to be so rich that its people 
can bear any burden laid upon them, however badly ad- 
justed. Some day it will be better appreciated that a large 
part of the complaints we hear of " hard times " are 
caused by heavy, needless burdens, very crudely adjusted. 



PUBLIC DEBTS 59 

139. Taxes should be laid on but few articles; direct 
taxes only on objects "in sight," as lands and houses ; and 
all taxes only for the purpose of raising money for the 
support of the government, State or Federal, economically 
administered, and for its legitimate purposes. 



XVIII 

OF PUBLIC DEBTS 

140. It happens, too frequently, that the taxes paid by 
a community do not suffice to pay the expenses which are 
incurred by it ; and in that case the community, as a cor- 
poration, borrotvs money. Thus arise national debts, State 
debts, county debts, city debts. 

141. A government "bond" is simply a certificate that 
the government which issues it owes the holder of the 
bond a sum mentioned on its face, with interest at a rate 
specified, payable at fixed periods, the principal or sum 
of the bond being also payable at a fixed time. Instead of 
sending agents around to borrow money, it is more con- 
venient for a government (or a railroad or other corpora- 
tion) to prepare such bonds, and thereupon offer them for 
sale. You may see frequently in the advertising columns 
of newspapers, State, city, county, and railroad bonds thus 
offered, the advertisement calling for bids for such bonds, 
which are, in effect, put up at public auction. 

142. The rate of interest named in such bonds is usu- 
ally low ; and if there are a great many bonds offered, or if 
it is known that the supply must be great, or that the 
security — which is the stability or good faith of the gov- 
ernment or other corporation — is doubtful, it can hope to 
receive only some sum for its bonds less than the sum 



60 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

which these promise to pay. People deal with governments 
in such matters precisely as they do with individuals. 

143. The security for a national or State debt is the hon- 
esty of its people. The sheriff, who is the official collector 
of debts, can not levy upon a nation, nor upon a State. 
All private corporations, such as railroads, can be sold out 
if the agreement is violated ; their bonds are true mortgage 
bonds, whose owners can foreclose and sell out the prop- 
erty pledged as security for their payment. Also, cities 
and towns can be sued and compelled to raise the money 
to pay their debts. 

144. If you owe so much money that to pay the inter- 
est on it requires the greater part of your income, you will 
readily comprehend that this might be a serious embarrass- 
ment to you. A private person in such a dilemma, if he 
has property, usually sells some of this, to pay off his debt 
or a part of it ; if he has little or no property and is hope- 
lessly in debt, he becomes a bankrupt, and on surrender- 
ing all that he has to his creditors, his debt is canceled 
under the operation of the bankrupt law. But a nation or a 
State has no property to sell or to surrender to its creditors ; 
it can not take the benefit of the bankrupt act. It must 
pay. 

145. But the interest it pays is drawn from the people 
by taxation. A heavy debt therefore necessarily increases 
the taxes ; and these may become so burdensome as to 
cripple the industry and energy of a people, as is the 
lamentable case of Italy and one or two other European 
states ; and is likely to be with yet others if the system of 
great armaments continues. Our own national credit 
justly stands very high. We are, in spite of too many 
injurious laws, a rich and industrious nation with a high 
sense of honor and of the value of public credit. 



PROPERTY 6 I 

XIX . 

OF PROPERTY 

146. Whatever you earn or produce or create by your 
labor or ingenuity or forethought, or all combined, is your 
property ; it belongs to you, because you have taken the 
trouble to produce it ; and you have the right to do with it 
what you will, within the limits of law. You may, for 
instance, consume or waste it all, as many actually do. 

147. If you produce more than you consume, what re- 
mains over is still your own, your property, to which you 
have the exclusive right against other persons. This sur- 
plus which remains over in your hands is called capital. 
Thus if you have saved enough from your product to buy 
yourself a spade, or a chest of tools, or a plow and span 
of horses, these articles are properly capital, and their pos- 
session constitutes you to that degree a capitalist. Many 
persons misuse this word, and a capitalist is generally 
understood to be one who has accumulated a large amount 
of property. I want you to understand that this is a fool- 
ish limitation of the meaning of this word. 

148. Capital might be called the net profit of labor, if it 
were not that, in order to create it, another element than 
labor is required, namely, self-denial or economy. For it 
is possible for a man to destroy, by consumption or waste, 
or both, all that he earns or produces ; and a considerable 
part of mankind do actually live in this way — from hand 
to mouth, as we say. 

149. Industry and economy united are therefore re- 
quired, as you see, to accumulate that surplus which we call 
capital ; and as both these are voluntary and irksome exer- 
cises, as you deny yourself both when you engage in produc- 



62 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

tive labor and when you refrain from consuming or wasting 
what you have produced, it folloius that no otlier person can 
have so good a claim on your surplus as yourself. 

150. In a rude or savage society, a man who wished to 
accumulate property had not only to labor to create it, and 
to exercise self-denial to save it, but he had to devote a 
considerable part of his time and strength to defending his 
possessions as well as his life against others. To save this 
last necessity, governments exist, their use being to make 
life and property secure against attack, and by a gen- 
eral cooperation and contribution of efforts or of means 
to overawe and punish depredators. Armies, navies, the 
police, the courts, and the body of laws in obedience to 
which all these act in &free state, are simply means for the 
guarding of life and property at a cheaper rate and in a 
more effective manner than could be done by individual 
efforts ; and every nation is therefore, in this respect, only 
a great cooperative association, in which each member 
contributes somewhat from his accumulations or earnings 
to pay the charges for preserving the rest. It is only by 
thus delegating the power of guardianship to a few mem- 
bers of society that the remainder can get time to produce 
sufficient for consumption and a surplus — which surplus 
we call wealth or capital. And it is only where the govern- 
ment to which we delegate this duty is effective that men are 
encouraged to the labor and self-denial necessary to create 
property or wealth. 

151. I want you to fix firmly in your mind that every dol- 
lar's worth of property or wealth in the world is a dollar's 
worth of proof that somebody at some time did not only la- 
bor to produce it, but denied himself some pleasure or com- 
fort in order to save it. For though God gave us the soil, the 
seasons, rain, and many other means of production, — just 



PROPERTY 63 

as he gave us our hands, strength, and brain, — these are in 
themselves not wealth. The gold lay in California for 
centuries and was unused and therefore valueless until men 
dug it out ; and in like manner every natural product is 
worthless until the labor of man is applied to it. For in- 
stance, the plains of Kansas might be covered with wheat ; 
but, unless it was harvested, it would be worthless. You 
may say that cattle would eat it ; but unless the cattle were 
afterwards caught and slain, and their hides and meat pre- 
served by the labor of men, they would be worthless ; and 
if, being caught, they were wastefully shot and left to rot, 
no surplus or capital would be saved. 

152. Remember, too, that what we call the wealth of a 
nation is only the aggregate wealth of its members, and 
represents the results of their industry and self-denial. To 
maintain or increase this wealth, therefore, a people must 
both labor and save ; and to be encouraged in these irk- 
some duties, they must feel themselves secure in the en- 
joyment of what they produce and accumulate. Every- 
thing, therefore, which makes property less secure, which 
exposes it not merely to open attack by predatory men, but 
to loss by bad laws or by inefficient or corrupt rulers^ weakens 
the spirit and the power of accumulation. 

153. But to maintain civilization, great accumulated 
wealth and an active desire by the people to accumulate 
more are absolutely necessary. If you will try to imagine 
a nation whose members have accumulated no property, 
you will see that to them civilization is impossible, even if 
they desired it. For such a people would have no houses, 
or cattle, or tools — all of which are accumulated wealth 
or capital, to possess which men must previously have 
labored and denied themselves. But you must see that 
such a civilization as ours requires much more than houses, 



64 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

cattle, and tools. We have schools, shops, factories, roads, 
railroads, steamboats, telegraphs, and a great multitude of 
other things, to possess any one of which we must have 
accumulated, previous to their construction, property or 
wealth enough by our labor and self-denial to pay their cost. 
A nation whose members had accumulated no property, 
and who consequently lived from hand to mouth, could not 
afford to build a railroad or a factory or a schoolhouse ; 
each person would be busy providing food for himself ; 
and no laboring force could be diverted to these other ob- 
jects, because no means or capital would be at hand to sup- 
port such a force while it was laying a stone wall or rolling 
a rail, which at the close of the day they could neither eat 
nor clothe themselves with. 

154. Nor, if accumulation should at any time cease, 
could civilization continue ; because in such a case the 
wealth already accumulated would quickly be spent, and 
the nation would be left without the means to maintain its 
instruments of civilization. It may interest you to know 
that by the careful computation of able statisticians, no 
nation, however rich, is ever more than three or four years 
ahead; that is to say, if among any people there should 
be a total stoppage of production and saving, in about 
four years that nation would be beggared and starving. 

XX 

OF BARTER 

155. To encourage men in production and facilitate 
accumulation, barter — the exchange of product for prod- 
uct — was the earliest expedient among savages. No man, 
not even a savage, can produce all the objects he needs or 
desires ; and to give something he has and does not need 



BARTER 65 

for something which some other man has and is willing to 
give in exchange, is the first natural act of a man, as soon 
as mere robbery becomes too dangerous or is forbidden by 
the ruler of his tribe. It is the beginning of commerce. 

156. But the practice of barter is very inconvenient in 
many ways, as reflection will quickly show you. If you 
are a carpenter and I a shoemaker, it could plainly be an 
advantage to both of us, I wanting a house and you shoes, 
if we agreed that you would build me the house, and I 
should make you a certain number of shoes. This kind 
of exchange is called barter. 

157. Imagine now a tribe or nation to whom barter is 
unknown, but who have learned to accumulate property. 
Each family aims to provide all it needs by its own labor ; 
and whatever its surplus may be it stores away. You will 
see the monstrous inconvenience of such a condition, because 
the surplus may be perishable. But, what is far more se- 
rious, suck a surplus could have no value ; for unless it could 
be sold, which means exchanged for some other articles giv- 
ing comfort or enjoyment, it would simply accumulate, and 
in time rot. That is to say, unless you can exchange your 
surplus for something else, it is worthless. 

158. Fix clearly in your mind, therefore, that to estab- 
lish industry and self-denial, which means to make civiliza- 
tion possible, it is necessary, first, that property shall be 
secure ; and, second, that the possessors of property shall 
be able to exchange it for other articles which they desire ; 
and that if you take away the possibility of exchange \ pro- 
duction will cease. 

1 59. But barter is an inconvenient and wasteful method 
of exchange. If you had surplus clothing and I coffee, you 
might, if you could find me, give me clothing for my cof- 
fee ; and thus both of us would be benefited and pleased. 

NORD. — 5 



66 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

We should, however, first be at the trouble of finding each 
other, and should waste much time in this pursuit, which 
would be so much taken from the production of other 
clothing and coffee. If now a third person should appear, 
ready to carry your clothing to me, and bring back to you 
my coffee, plainly that would be an advantage to both of 
us, who could go on in the pursuits in which we had most 
skill, and in which therefore we could produce the most. 

1 60. This third person is called a merchant, and his busi- 
ness is commerce. For his trouble we should both be ready 
to pay him a share of our products, because by using his 
labor and skill we are enabled to produce a greater quantity. 

161. But how am I to be sure that the merchant to whom 
I intrust my coffee is honest, and that he will really bring 
me back clothing, w T hich I want ? He may be a rogue. 
To smooth the way and make us both secure, we have an 
ingenious contrivance called money, the precise nature of 
which it is very important that you should understand. 

162. If the merchant who offers to exchange for us our 
clothing and coffee can leave with us, as a pledge of his 
honesty, something which either of us will accept of the 
other as really valuable and equally valuable with our 
products, we shall of course be satisfied. For if the mer- 
chant should disappear with your clothing, you would still 
have that with which you could procure my coffee. 

163. Take another example : If you are a shoemaker, it 
is necessary for you to receive for your shoes either the 
actual articles you need to consume, or something which 
will procure these. You may be willing to accept for shoes 
an order on the farmer for oats and butter, another on the 
miller for flour, another on the tailor for clothing, another 
on the hatter for hats. But your great object has been to 
have at the end of all these transactions a number of shoes 



THE MATERIALS USED FOR MONEY 6j 

for which you need no article which is at once to be con- 
sumed by you or your family. These surplus shoes, the 
result of labor and self-denial, are your capital ; what will 
you take for them ? Not an order for more butter, oats, 
flour, clothes, hats, for your shoes will keep as well or 
better than any of these articles. Yet, to store up surplus 
shoes is inconvenient and risky ; rats may eat them ; damp 
storage may spoil them ; fire may destroy them ; in course 
of time they would rot — or a new fashion in shoes may 
come in so that no one would want your stored shoes. 

164. If you could get for your surplus shoes something 
which was not cumbrous, or easily destroyed, or subject to 
loss by change of fashion, and which had universal and 
equal value among producers, so that everywhere they 
would be willing to accept it at the same rate or value in 
exchange for their products, that would plainly be a great 
convenience to you, and thus a great advantage. 

165. This something, which is used and has been used 
by all nations and tribes as soon as they ceased to be the 
lowest savages, as a means for facilitating the exchange of 
products, is money. Money, therefore, has been accurately 
defined as a medium of exchange. It is that and noth- 
ing more. You cannot eat it, or wear it except as an orna- 
ment ; it is neither food nor clothing : it is a " medium of 
exchange," a means to facilitate the exchange of food, 
clothing, and other products. 

XXI 

OF THE MATERIALS USED FOR MONEY 

166. Money being thus a great convenience to facilitate 
the exchange of products — as a medium of exchange — 
some form of money has come into use even among most 



68 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

savages. Thus over a large part of Africa and in the is- 
lands of the Pacific Ocean, glass beads, which the savages 
could not make, and of which the supply was limited by 
reason of difficult and infrequent intercourse with civilized 
men — glass beads served for many years as money. For 
so many strings of beads a traveler could buy an ox, or 
other supplies ; for so many more he could hire a man's 
services. Beads had in each tribe a recognized value, and 
were, while this condition lasted, true money — a medium 
of exchange \ willingly accepted ; and, please observe, need- 
ing no " legal tender" law to force their acceptance. 

167. But as communication became easier, as more fre- 
quent travelers brought more abundant supplies of beads, 
these lost their use as money among the most easily acces- 
sible tribes. 

168. Wampum — strings of a certain kind of shell — 
were used and valued as money — as a medium of exchange 
— by our Indians ; and are still so used among some rude 
African tribes. But when the supply became overabun- 
dant, and when at the same time a more convenient, more 
portable, more easily concealed and stored kind of money, 
and a kind, moreover, much more widely exchangeable for 
useful or desirable articles, came within their reach, the use 
of wampum as money, as a medium of exchange, was 
abandoned by them. 

169. Iron was used as money by some ancient nations, 
but as its manufacture from the abundant ore became com- 
mon, its use as money ceased. Copper was largely used 
as money in comparatively modern times, but except among 
a few barbarous nations it also has gone out of use as 
money, though it is still used as " small change," or " sub- 
sidiary coin," of which, and its difference from real 
money, I will speak to you presently. 



SUBSIDIARY CURRENCY 69 

170. You will observe that as any material used for 
money became more abundant it lost value or was depre- 
ciated, and that some other kind was adopted, even by 
savages. The superior excellence of the new money 
material, in their minds, was that it was more easily car- 
ried about, more easily stored or concealed, and more 
widely and universally acceptable at a steady rate ; so that 
not only was it more convenient, but what was to them 
of prime importance, its use as a medium of exchange 
extended over a much wider area. Not their own tribe 
only, but all its neighbors, were ready to give products for 
the improved kind of money. These advantages com- 
bined even savages see. 

171. Silver was, during a long period, the chief money 
of most European nations. But partly for the same 
reasons which moved savages to reject glass beads and 
wampum, their over-abundance and cumbrousness, most 
European nations, as well as our own country, have now 
for some time disused silver as money. They still, how- 
ever, as we too, use silver very largely as a necessary con- 
venience, for small change, or "subsidiary currency." The 
difference between this and real money I will now explain 
to you. 

XXII 

OF SUBSIDIARY CURRENCY 

172. All civilized nations have established mints , where 
both real money and subsidiary currency are coined. This 
is a general convenience ; it saves all of us the trouble and 
expense of assaying for ourselves the crude metals. 

173. Bear in mind that the coinage of a metal does not 
and can not give it added value. The mint stamp is only 



70 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

the government's universally accepted official certificate of 
the coin's purity and weight, and the mint's denomination 
on the coin is this certificate and nothing more. 

174. Observe, too, that the government does not even 
own the gold its mints coin into money. It is the property 
of those who carry it in bars or ingots to the mint ; and 
their object in getting the government to turn these into 
coins is not to get increased value for their metal, but only 
to get the official government certificate that each coin 
contains so much gold. 

175. When, however, our government coins "subsidiary 
currency" as silver dollars, and halves, and quarters, and 
nickel and copper coins, the action of the government and 
mint is entirely different. This difference it is important 
you should clearly understand. 

176. In making subsidiary currency, — whether the 
pieces be called " dollars," or "half dollars," or "cents," 
— 1, our government buys the metal and has it coined on 
its own account; 2, it puts into each subsidiary coin a less 
value of metal than its denomination, — for instance, it puts 
into a silver "dollar" only from sixty to seventy cents' 
worth of the silver ; 3, it puts these undervalued coins 
into its treasury, and pays them out to those who want 
them ; 4, and it redeems such subsidiary coins, on 
demand, in real or gold money. Under this system 
our country is, in common with most European nations, on 
what is called a "gold basis"; and with this a large num- 
ber of our people are, for various reasons, dissatisfied, and 
wish that silver be admitted to free coinage at the mints on 
the same footing with gold. 

177. Subsidiary coin is a general convenience, because 
in the infinitely numerous daily minor transactions between 
the citizens, a very great quantity of "small change" is 



BIMETALLISM 7 1 

required. As these transactions are confined to our own 
country, it is not important that these subsidiary coins 
should contain their " f ace value" of metal, so long as the 
government stands ready to redeem them, or give real money, 
gold, for them, at their " face value " or denomination. 

178. You may use real or gold money, at its "face 
value," or mint denomination, all over the world, in pay- 
ments ; but subsidiary coin is taken at its face value only 
in the country whose government makes and circulates it 
among its citizens. In other countries it is rejected as real 
money and accepted only as bullion or metal, or at its 
value as such metal — and this, you easily see, is because 
it does not contain the true value ; our silver dollar, for 
instance, containing — though for convenience called a 
"dollar" — only from sixty to seventy cents' worth of 
silver, as measured in gold money. 

179. To give you an example of the distinction thus 
inevitably and constantly made, the Mexican dollar con- 
tains more silver than our own silver dollar, but it is ac- 
cepted in our country not as a dollar, but only at its bullion 
value, while our own silver dollar, having actuallv less sil- 
ver in it, is, by our people, readily taken as a full dollar. 
Observe that this is because our government redeems our 
silver dollars in gold, while the Mexican government does 
not do that for its silver dollars. 

XXIII 
OF BIMETALLISM 

180. Bimetallism means the coincident use, as real 
money, of two metals, as gold and silver, at a fixed ratio of 
value, as that sixteen ounces of silver shall be taken as the 
equivalent of one ounce of gold. 



72 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

181. If, as a matter of fact, sixteen ounces of silver are 
worth in the world's markets an ounce of gold, in that case 
both metals can be used at this ratio as real money, though 
even then gold money might be preferred, because of its 
much greater convenience in carrying and storing it. 

182. During the earlier part of our national history the 
values, compared with each other, of gold and silver were 
generally steady, but not absolutely so ; and while this 
condition lasted, and so far as it at any time existed, both 
could be used as real money. As a matter of fact, how- 
ever, the United States was substantially an almost exclu- 
sively gold-using country all the time, as is shown by the 
mint's official returns of the coinage of the two metals. 

183. Between 1793 and 1873, in which last year the 
silver dollar was by act of Congress demonetized, a period 
of eighty years, our mints coined $813,905,878 in gold, but, 
in the same period, only 8,045,838 silver dollars, though 
those silver dollars were in all that time a legal tender 
equal with gold. In the same period there were coined 
137,009,676 dollars' worth of small silver — halves, quar- 
ters, dimes, etc. — for use as small change. 

184. It is clear, from these figures, that the American 
people preferred gold to silver, and very greatly preferred 
it. They preferred gold as real money, partly because the 
American people have always been a shrewd and eager 
commercial people, seeking to extend their trade and sell 
their products in all parts of the world, and experience 
early taught them that for such foreign and world-wide 
commerce a form of money of general preference was 
most advantageous to them. But it is evident from the 
extremely small coinage of silver dollars that even for 
home transactions they preferred gold over silver, and the 
probable reason is that for carriage, storage, and ready 



BIMETALLISM 73 

concealment gold possesses a very great advantage over 
silver. 

185. In April, 1870, a bill revising the coinage laws was 
brought before the Senate, and in the following June before 
the House of Representatives. This bill did not become a 
law until nearly three years later — in February, 1873. It 
established the gold dollar as the unit of value, and dropped 
the silver dollar from the coinage. The elimination of 
the long-unused and substantially unknown silver dollar 
aroused very little opposition in either house during the 
long period in which the bill was pending. 

186. It was not until some years later — in 1875—6 -^ 
that, coincidently with a heavy fall in silver, there arose a 
demand that a legal tender silver dollar should again be 
coined. Many people were induced to join in this demand 
by the assertion that gold was becoming scarce, and 
that it alone was insufficient for the needs of commerce ; 
though in fact there was at the same time, and is still, a 
constantly increasing production of gold. They demanded 
a restoration of bimetallism, and at the old ratio between 
the two metals. 

187. Congress, impressed by this demand, in which many 
persons joined in the belief that an act of legislation can alter 
real values, adopted a compromise (1878). It ordered the 
purchase, by the treasury, of silver bullion and its coinage 
into silver dollars. It also declared these coins a legal 
tender for all debts. 

188. This, however, was not bimetallism, since the silver 
was coined only on government account. The silver coined 
under this law, and the silver-coinage laws which have 
followed it, is really subsidiary coinage. 

189. In spite of the large coinage of silver dollars by the 
government, silver continued to fall in price in the world's 



74 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

markets ; and not only that, but its continuous and large 
fluctuation in value totally unfitted it for use as real money. 
The silver dollar was worth in 1873 a little more than a 
gold dollar; in 1876 it was worth only eighty-nine cents; 
and its value has since then fallen as low as sixty cents. 

190. It will be clear to you, I think, that real money 
being merely a measure of values ', — a yardstick, as it has 
been called, — it is impossible, without constant confusion 
and enormous loss to all, to use as real money a metal of 
constantly varying and therefore uncertain value in the 
world's markets, and in our own of course. The attempt 
to force its use as real money by making silver, equally 
with gold, freely coinable at the mints, would not only com- 
mit the government to a dishonest transaction, in declaring 
that to be a dollar which every one now feels is not so ; 
but it would have the effect of at once withdrawing all gold 
from our circulation, because no one would pay out gold 
or one hundred cent dollars when he could pay out silver 
or sixty to seventy cent dollars. 

191. Take notice that those who demanded the free 
coinage of silver " dollars " by our mints, required at the 
same time that these sixty or seventy cent dollars should 
be made a " legal tender" for the payment of all debts. 
Of this injurious and after all futile contrivance of " legal 
tender " laws I must next tell you. 



XXIV 

^ OF "LEGAL TENDER" LAWS 

192. It was a shrewd and true saying of an Egyptian 
Bey to a foreign friend, that governments ought to inter- 
fere in the private affairs of their people as little as pos- 



"LEGAL TENDER" LAWS 75 

sible, for, said he, "the government is an irresistible 
power, and when it interferes with the private affairs and 
interests of the people it is more likely to injure them than 
not." It is true that a legislature can by its laws effect 
many strange and injurious things. It can make you pay 
a fine (called a duty) for buying what you need in the 
cheapest and best market. It can, by a law (also called a 
duty), so increase the price of a commodity — hides, for 
instance, which are the raw material of shoes — as to 
injure a great and useful industry, — as shoemaking, — on 
which the comfort and prosperity of many thousands of 
families depends. It can, by systematically favoring a 
few industries, crush out a multitude of smaller ones, and 
thus narrow the range and diversity of callings, to the 
great injury of the mass of the people, who thus have their 
ingenuity, skill, and independence lessened, and instead 
of engaging in a great diversity of pursuits requiring per- 
sonal ingenuity and skill, become the servants of great 
capitalistic combinations in a few and much lower employ- 
ments, requiring less intelligence. 

193. But one thing no government has ever been able to 
do ; that is, by a "legal tender law" to force its people to 
accept bad or depreciated money, or money of varying and 
uncertain value, at the same rate as good money. 

194. By "legal tender" laws Congress can derange 
the whole business of the country ; it can bring loss and 
distress upon the whole vast body of citizens who work 
for wages — for the first effect of a legal tender law aim- 
ing to make bad or depreciated money equal with good 
and full valued money, is to lessen the purchasing power 
of wages by increasing the price of the necessaries of life. 

195. But no legal tender act, however rigid, ever suc- 
ceeded, and least of all in this day of widespread intel- 



y6 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

ligence, in making bad money, or money of fluctuating 
value, pass on an equality with good. 

196. What then is the excuse for legal tender laws? 
There is none; they are a relic of barbarism and des- 
potism. They have no use in an honest and intelligent 
community or nation, and, if they have any effect, can 
only do injury. A legal tender law ordering all American 
citizens to accept American gold coin in the payment of 
debts would be ridiculous and entirely superfluous; because 
nobody thinks of refusing gold dollars. No legal tender 
law is required to compel men to accept real or good 
money. It is only when an attempt is to be made to put 
money of low or uncertain value on a par or equality with 
good, that legal tender laws are brought forward by men 
who are unaware that such laws have never, in a civilized 
state, been effective for their designs. 

197. The belief in the usefulness of legal tender laws is 
part of a series of popular superstitions, all of them injuri- 
ous to the people. Another of these is the notion that " a 
national debt is a national blessing/ ' A debt is no more 
a blessing than a lame foot or a bad fit of illness. Another 
is that a nation may become rich by needlessly taxing 
itself, which is as though a man should say that his labor 
would be made more effective if he should tie one hand 
behind him while he worked. High and needless taxation 
impoverishes a people, disables them from cheap produc- 
tion, and thus deprives them of a wide market for their 
products, because, as you can see, the tax is an element in 
the cost of production ; and needless taxation can only effect 
a lowering of wages. 

198. There is no need or excuse hi our country for legal 
tender laws. They are only instruments of oppression and 
abuse, which ought not to be tolerated by a free people, 



BANKS, BANKING, AND CREDIT JJ 

for they serve only to derange business, check enterprise, 
and injure the workers for wages, while they give a very 
great opportunity to speculators. 

XXV 

OF BANKS, BANKING, AND CREDIT 

199. If I have a thousand dollars which I shall need to 
use three months from now, but do not need in the mean- 
time, it would be an advantage to me to be able to lend the 
money out at interest for three months. But it might hap- 
pen that you wanted to use a thousand dollars for three 
months and no more ; and it would be an advantage to 
you to be able to borrow, not for a year or a longer term, 
but for three months only. If we two could know of each 
other's wants at the right time, both of us would be bene- 
fited; and not we two only, but also all whom our joint 
arrangement enabled you to employ with my thousand 
dollars, and me with the interest I received of you. 

200. In every civilized country there are daily hundreds, 
or rather hundreds of thousands, of such instances ; and 
banks are established to enable borrower and lender to 
be quickly accommodated. Experience has shown that 
the demand of lenders can be foretold, depending, as it does, 
upon business transactions arising out of commerce, manu- 
factures, and agriculture, which have their regular periods 
of activity. A banker, therefore, acts upon his knowledge 
of the laws of commerce and the laws of nature, which 
tell him that money realized by one set of transactions may 
be safely loaned to persons engaged in another set, to be 
returned in time to be used for a third, and so on. You 
can see, for instance, that a miller, having sold his flour, 
can lend his money to a farmer, who wants to plant his 



y8 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

crop ; provided that at harvest the farmer, who will then 
sell his crop, will return the loan to the miller. The store- 
keeper, with whom laborers spend their wages for the 
necessaries of life, receives meantime money, which he 
may lend to the miller in case he should want to repair 
his machinery. 

201. A bank is an association to facilitate such loans, 
and its interests are therefore harmonious with those of 
the whole community, and especially with those of the 
class who work for wages ; because the less capital lies idle 
the more will be at the disposal of those who want to employ 
labor and pay wages. 

202. A bank is in fact an association for the safe-keep- 
ing and the loaning of money. It becomes responsible to 
us for the money we deposit with it ; allows us to draw 
checks at will against our deposits ; in some cases pays us 
a low rate of interest on the sums we leave with it; and 
makes its profits by lending at higher rates. As it is 
responsible to us for our money, it must lend on good 
security only, and must know the character as well as the 
circumstances of borrowers ; and as it must return us our 
money at any time, and without previous notice, its man- 
agers can properly lend only at short dates, or "on call" 
— that is, to be repaid by the borrower after a short in- 
terval, or on demand. And it is to the banker's interest 
not only to make as many loans as possible, but to make 
them prudently, to competent men, on good security; for 
he has capital of his own at stake, and if he should fail to 
pay his depositors on demand, they would close his bank 
and seize his property. 

203. Thus you see that a bank is a means for the 
economical use of capital ; and every economy of this kind 
makes more readily available the fund out of which wages 



BANKS, BANKING, AND CREDIT 79 

can be paid, and thus secures a greater range and amount 
of employment to those who work for wages. 

204. What is thus true of banks is, of course, equally 
true of credit in general. If a mechanic, on the strength 
of his good name and of his chest of tools, can borrow a 
hundred dollars for a year or for a term of years, and if 
he has a profitable use for the money, evidently he is 
benefited by the credit he has. He may use it to pay the 
wages of men he employs ; and with the help of a small 
loan may in time achieve real independence. And if, after 
having accumulated property, his character and property 
secure him credit for ten thousand dollars, and enable him 
to employ fifty or a hundred men, still that credit is a 
benefit not only to him, but to all whom by its help he 
is able to employ for wages. 

205. Thus credit is useful to the poor > and not merely to 
the rich ; and to the many, and not only to the individuals 
who have or use it. 

206. But credit may be misused ; as if I should borrow 
money to be used in an enterprise, as a mill, which was 
unprofitable. Here my laborers would still receive the 
money in wages. I should lose that ; but they and the 
mass of laborers also would lose, secondarily, because 
the capital sunk or lost in the unprofitable mill would be 
dead ; it would never more be available for wages or con- 
sumption ; it could not increase, and would produce no 
profits available for wages ; and by every such loss of 
capital, the whole community, including, as you plainly 
see, the laborers for wages — the non-capitalists as well 
as the capitalists — are the poorer. Thus when a bad law 
tempts or forces capital into naturally unprofitable indus- 
tries, this is a loss to the mass of the laborers as well as to 
the owners of the capital. 



80 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

207. In many cases, indeed, the individual capitalist 
prudently saves himself from loss, by insurance. Thus, 
when a mill or factory is burned down, or swept away by 
a broken dam, the owners may receive its full value from 
an insurance company ; they may use this money to re- 
build their factory, and thus give temporary employment 
to a large number of men ; and to a superficial view the 
loss might appear a gain. But you must see that, first, 
the operatives stand idle while the mill is rebuilding, or if 
they seek employment elsewhere, do so at a loss to them- 
selves by the cost of removal, and at a loss to others of 
their own class by increasing the supply of their kind of 
labor at the very time that the demand is diminished ; and, 
second, the old mill rebuilt will give employment only to 
its former operatives, while if the mill had not been de- 
stroyed, the capital used in rebuilding it would have been 
available for a new mill or other enterprise, which would 
have given employment to an additional number of hands. 

208. Thus you see that destruction of capital must work 
to the injury of the non-capitalist class, the workers for 
wages. The destructive fire which burned down the 
greater part of Chicago gave employment for a time to a 
multitude of carpenters, masons, bricklayers, and others, 
and caused a seeming but artificial prosperity while the city 
was getting rebuilt ; but it was, nevertheless, a loss to the 
mass of the laboring population, because it seriously lessened 
the surplus wealth of the country, and turned so much of 
what remained away from new works to the repair of vast 
losses. The great Boston and Chicago fires were followed 
by a general stagnation in business all over the country, 
because capital which would have been used in other 
enterprises and expenditures, and consequently in the pay- 
ment of wages for other and new production, was concen- 



BANK NOTES 8 1 

trated in Boston and Chicago, and used to repair enormous 
waste and losses, to replace what had been destroyed. 

209. But an unprofitable enterprise is just as much a 
destruction of capital as a fire ; and if I should hire you 
for a year to carry bricks from one side of a road to the 
other and back, though you might in the- meantime live 
from your wages, I should have sunk my capital, and the 
mass of the laborers in the community would have suffered 
a loss, because there would be less capital out of which to 
pay wages. 

210. Thus you see that credit, which is only capital in 
another shape, can not be misused without inflicting a loss 
on the whole community, and especially on the laborers for 
wages. 

XXVI 

OF BANK NOTES 

211. Besides receiving money on deposit, and lending 
it out on security, which is their proper and legitimate 
business, banks sometimes issue notes or bills of their own. 

212. A bank note is not money ; on the contrary, it is 
only a promise to pay money. It is one of several kinds of 
promises to pay, and differs from the others mainly in 
these particulars — that it bears no interest, and that the 
holder has no security in his own hands. 

213. If you have in your pocket a twenty dollar gold 
piece, you have actually in your possession that much 
value. But if you have in your pocket a bank note for 
twenty dollars, you have only a certificate that a bank, 
which may be a thousand miles distant, and of whose man- 
agers you know nothing, has your twenty dollars. 

214. Now, if you wished to carry about with you two or 

NORD. — 6 



82 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

three hundred, or even one hundred dollars, it would 
obviously be more convenient to carry bank notes to that 
amount than money ; for the paper bills are lighter than 
coin, and more easily concealed from thieves. 

215. This convenience of carriage and concealment is 
the excuse for the existence of bank bills, and it is a suffi- 
cient excuse where men need to carry about considerable 
sums. But a laboring man, whose whole wages for a week 
amount perhaps to less than twenty dollars ', and who pays 
out the greater part of this sum at once for subsistence, is 
not inconvenienced by the zv eight of his money. He does not 
need bank bills ; and there is no need for small bills to 
accommodate him. 

216. Banks like to issue small bills, because these remain 
longer in circulation, and the proportion lost and destroyed 
is naturally greater. 

217. But for the public advantage the issue of small 
bills, under ten dollars, is not necessary, and the issue of 
bank bills for sums less than ten dollars ought to be totally 
prohibited. 

218. Laws authorizing banks to issue bills ought to 
guard with the most vigilant care the right of the bill 
holder to have his bank bill redeemed on demand, and at 
all times, in real money. 

219. Such laws should, in the public interest, also pro- 
vide regulations under which all banks of issue should be 
compelled to unite their responsibilities, so that all the 
banks of issue in the whole country should be held respon- 
sible and forced to redeem on demand the bills of each, 
and in real money. In that way a citizen who is offered a 
bank bill — no matter how distant the bank which issued it 
— would know that behind this bank bill stood, not a single 
bank, which might be insolvent, but all the banks author- 



"GREENBACKS" 83 

ized in the whole Union. With such security all bank 
bills could be safely taken all over the country. 

220. Our national bank system, by a different but cum- 
brous expedient, has worked well; for under it no bill 
holder has ever, since its establishment, lost a cent ; and 
the bills of all national banks have been equally and safely 
acceptable in all parts of the country, because it is 
known that if the bank fails, the Federal Government 
will redeem its bills, selling for that end the government 
bonds which it compels banks of issue to deposit in the 
Federal treasury, as a safeguard, before they are author- 
ized to issue bills. 

221. Under any system authorizing the issiie of bank 
bills, the officers and directors of a bank failing or refusing 
to redeem its bills in real money on demand ought to be 
subjected to very severe penalties, not merely of loss of 
property, but of imprisonment; for their failure in this 
primary duty is a fraud on a helpless public. 

XXVII 

OF "GREENBACKS" 

222. " Greenbacks " are demand notes of the govern- 
ment, issued in the stress of a great war, and made a legal 
tender. As they were forced on the people by being 
made a legal tender, they were, in effect, a forced loan. 

223. They took the place of real money, on their issue, 
and not only gold but even subsidiary coin disappeared 
from circulation for a number of years after " greenbacks " 
came in. 

224. Greenbacks had for years a varying value, some- 
times being worth no more than fifty or sixty cents, and 



84 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

even less in real money, which shows you again how futile 
are legal tender laws. 

225. This variableness in value, of course, gave great 
and constant opportunities to speculators. 

226. But the legal tender quality given these govern- 
ment notes, and their rapid depreciation in value, caused 
an immediate rise in the prices of products, which caused 
great suffering to those who worked for wages, because 
wages rose but slowly, and not in proportion to prices 
— as all history shows is always the case when under- 
valued or depreciated money is made a legal tender and 
thus takes the place of real or good money. 

227. On the " resumption of specie payments" — when, 
that is to say, the government, having bought gold for the 
purpose, offered to pay off the greenbacks in real money, 
gold — these went at once to par, and there followed 
immediately on this settlement of values a period of great 
prosperity all over the country. 

228. Obviously, when they were thus redeemed by the 
government, being past due obligations bearing no interest, 
they should have been destroyed. 

229. But Congress, by a law which has proved a great 
curse to the country, ordered them to be reissued after they 
were paid off — and this, although the government had for 
years an immense surplus revenue, and had no need there- 
fore to borrow by this reissue of its notes. 

230. As under the resumption act you can get gold on 
demand for greenbacks, at the treasury, and as, on the 
other hand, the greenback is at the same time made by 
Congress receivable for all its debts, the only present 
advantage of the greenback is to speculators, who may use 
it to draw gold from the treasury for their purposes. As 
the government often receives but little gold in its revenues, 



USURY LAWS 85 

it is forced, when its store is lessened, as has happened, 
to issue bonds for the purchase of gold, of which it is, 
by these foolish laws, obliged to keep a great store on 
hand. 

231. If the general public sees the treasury's gold les- 
sening in amount, it becomes alarmed, anticipating the 
treasury's inability to pay its obligations in real money. 
Gold in private hands is then hoarded, as in 1893-4, a 
panic ensues, business and enterprise stop or are seriously 
checked ; workshops close, or men and women are put on 
half time ; consumption of products is checked — men 
wear old clothes instead of buying new, for instance. 
The great body of millions of laboring men and women 
and their families fall into distress and discontent. 

232. You see, in this example, what widespread and 
very serious evil may follow as the result of a bad law, 
and in this case a very foolish law. If the greenbacks — 
or past due obligations of the government, issued in the 
extreme stress of a great war — had been canceled or de- 
stroyed as fast as they were paid off, which could easily 
have been done during the years when we had a great 
surplus revenue — or if Congress had even taken away 
their legal tender quality — all this costly trouble would 
have been avoided. 

XXVIII 

OF USURY LAWS 

233. If you- have money, you may hide it, as a miser 
does ; or you may use it in enterprises, in building houses, 
for instance, in which case you receive a return or interest 
on your investment, called rent ; while in the work of con- 
struction your money yields employment to a variety of 



86 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

workmen. Or you may loan your money to some one 
else, to use. 

234. If you lend your money to some one, you take the 
risk of losing it — he may not pay it back. Also you deny 
yourself the use of it while it is out of your hands. You 
have a natural right to compensation for the risk you run 
and the self-denial you submit to. That reward to you for 
loaning your money to another is called interest. If you 
own a house and let it to another person, on the agreement 
that he shall pay you rent, you perceive that this is the 
same thing — the rent you receive for your house is 
the interest on the money you spent in building it, and 
on the cost of the ground on which it stands. 

235. Now, if the city or State or Federal Government 
should be asked to make a law regulating how much rent 
you and all others should receive for your houses, every- 
body would denounce that as an absurd and tyrannical 
interference with private affairs. It would be justly said 
that the rentable value of houses depends on their situa- 
tions, the uses to which they are put, and the demand for 
such houses in such localities, and that no lawmaking body 
can determine these constantly varying circumstances. 

236. But, further, such a law would largely put a stop 
to building houses, because men with money to spare, who 
were inclined to use it for housebuilding, would leave this 
and find some other, some safer way, to lay out their 
money for investment — some way by which they could 
get a natural return of interest and escape the arbitrary 
interference of the government. If housebuilding were 
thus stopped, you can see that mechanics and laboring 
men would be thrown out of employment, and thus a 
numerous and useful part of the population would be in- 
jured ; while the increasing scarcity of " Houses to let," 



USURY LAWS 87 

would very soon put to loss and make uncomfortable the 
great mass of the population in cities, who do not own the 
houses or rooms they live in. You can see that if house- 
building were checked, house rents would go up. Thus, 
by such a foolish law, limiting the rent — which is the 
interest — to be charged on houses, the whole laboring 
population would be seriously injured and put to loss, and 
only those — the wealthier citizens — who own the houses 
they live in, would be safe against loss and inconvenience. 

237. But while lawmakers do not attempt to regulate or 
prescribe the rent — or interest — which a house owner 
shall receive for his money investment in it, they do, in 
many of our States, prescribe by law what rent, or interest, 
he shall receive for the money itself, if he loans or lets 
that out. Such a regulation is called a usury law, and is a 
pernicious interference in the people's private affairs. 

238. It is impossible for lawmakers to know, and justly 
prescribe by law, what a man should pay, or another receive, 
as rent on, say, a two-story frame house ; because, as I 
showed you above, its value for use cannot be foretold ; it 
depends on situation, demand, and other circumstances. 
But it is even less possible for a legislative body to foresee 
the value, to the borrower, of the money he wants to bor- 
row. The " Usury Law " may tell him that he shall not pay 
more than four, five, or six per cent ; or that the owner of 
the money shall not receive more than that rate. But the 
borrower may find and know that his enterprise is of such 
a profitable character that he can afford to pay ten or 
twelve per cent, or even more ; and a law forbidding him 
to do this would be an injury to him. 

239. In the settlement of our western States, for in- 
stance, usury laws, if they had existed in those States, 
would have seriously checked and hindered their develop- 



88 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

ment. In the earlier history of Indiana farmers often 
paid twenty per cent per annum for money they borrowed. 
They were poor men, who took up " Congress land/' and 
knew by a wide experience that if they could borrow money 
to " break" it and put in a crop, the first crop might pay 
for the whole investment. But to make that first crop the 
farmer, having no money of his own, had to borrow, and 
he could well afford to pay high interest, and would have 
been the loser if a . usury law had interfered with his bor- 
rowing by prescribing a rate of interest at which no money 
owner would take the risk of lending him what he needed 
to start his farm. For the owner of the money asked a 
high rate of interest because the farmer's enterprise was 
in certain elements risky : the borrower might die ; his 
crop might fail ; or his management might be bad. 

240. All new countries or regions lack money for their 
proper and rapid development ; and as in such new coun- 
tries there are unusual opportunities for gain, in fertile 
soils, mineral deposits, and more than all in the great work 
of construction of dwellings and other houses, roads, and 
all other things required to plant civilization in a wilder- 
ness, there is a great demand for money capital. The 
vigorous, shrewd, enterprising men who carry on business 
in a new country have need for a great deal of ready 
money, because the wages of labor are high, there is a 
great deal of useful and necessary work to be done, 
and workmen must be paid promptly " every Saturday 
night." 

241. In "new countries," therefore, where much work is 
needed to be done, and done rapidly, the rate of interest 
on money is always high. In older and longer-settled 
regions it is lower ; and in general the interest rate tends 
to fall slowly, but constantly, in all settled regions, and all 



USURY LAWS 89 

countries which are at peace and have an orderly govern- 
ment. 

242. Thirty years ago in New York city, a man who 
was accounted a shrewd and far-seeing business man, and 
was a man of fortune, was asked in my presence why he 
did not spend ten thousand dollars on a matter he was 
known to have much at heart. His reply was, " Ten thou- 
sand dollars is seven hundred dollars a year forever, and I 
will not make that sacrifice." He had in mind that the 
common and natural rate of interest at that time in New 
York city was seven per cent; and he, and the community 
in general, believed that this would not change. But if 
this man were now alive he would see that in New 
York he would be lucky to get four per cent on a sound 
security. 

243. To give you another case where high interest was 
profitably paid by a poor but capable man : A quarter of 
a century ago I was riding through a part of California 
then very thinly settled, and found it one day convenient 
to stop over night with a " sheep man " in his camp. He 
was an intelligent man, and owned the sheep. In the 
evening, sitting by his camp fire, he told me of his busi- 
ness. He had been a poor workingman, without money, 
but saw that there was abundance of unoccupied land on 
which he could graze sheep, if only he could get money 
to buy the sheep. " I looked over the whole thing care- 
fully," he said to me, " and when I saw my way, I went to 
a man who knew me, and he lent me enough money to 
buy this band of sheep. I had to pay him twenty-five per 
cent for the loan, but I made fifty per cent last year, and 
hope to do as well this year ; and you understand my sheep 
are increasing all the time — and they are mine." I said 
the rate of interest seemed high. He replied : " You can 



go POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

see that I can afford to go halves with my creditor, and 
take twenty-five per cent for my share, for I am making 
that with his money and of course he took a risk and is 
entitled to his share until I pay him off. If I had not 
found him, I should have been a day-laborer to this 
day." 

244. You can see that if there had been a usury law in 
California in those days this man, and a great many others 
like him, poor, but capable and industrious, would have 
been prevented from making a start in life. 

245. The temptation of high interest brings money into 
a new region ; the owners of the money take risks, and 
charge for them. If the law forbids them to do this, by 
prescribing a lower rate and a penalty for taking more, 
they refuse to lend. It is the poor men who are benefited 
by the freedom to borrow of which a usury law deprives 
them. 

246. It is practically impossible to establish by law a 
general rate of interest for money, because the natural 
rate, in spite of laws, varies greatly and constantly with the 
nature of the transaction, the character of the borrowers, 
the confidence of lenders, the activity of business (which 
increases the number of borrowers), the belief in the per- 
manence of institutions, the condition of peace or war, 
and for many other reasons. 

247. It is an axiom based on the experience of centuries 
in many nations that a higher, rather than lower, rate 
of interest at any time is a token of general prosperity 
in a country which is at peace and has a settled and 
orderly government. Thus it was shown by an eminent 
English economist, by a comparison of the interest rates 
in England during a series of years, that two per cent 
denoted "hard times," while the country was prosperous 



COMMERCE 91 

in those years when the rate rose to three or four per 
cent. You will understand this generalization if you reflect 
that in prosperous times the profits of enterprises are 
large, and the number of new ones needing money to 
carry them on is growing, thus increasing the demand 
for money by borrowers. 

248. Finally, usury laws are injurious to borrowers 
because they are largely evaded — to the injury of bor- 
rowers, as you will see. The borrower pays, ostensibly, 
and on the face of the papers, only the legal rate, the 
rate fixed by the usury law. That makes the lender safe 
against the law. The borrower, however, oftenest does not 
deal directly with the lender, but with the lender's agent, 
and he is required to pay a premium to this agent (to be 
divided between the lender and his agent), and this may 
run up a six per cent loan to eight or even ten per cent. 



XXIX 

OF COMMERCE 

249. You have seen, under the head of Property > that 
the surplus, or that part of his product not needed by the 
producer for his own consumption, has 710 real value, and- 
ean not become wealth or capital unless lie can exchange it 
for some tiling else. 

250. It is not less true that the value of the surplus 
grows in the precise measure in which the facility of ex- 
changing it is increased. 

251. The Nebraska farmer, years ago, was unable to 
get his corn to market ; was forced to burn it as fuel ; and 
no matter how rich his land, or how great his crop, the sur- 
plus on his hands was after all worth to him only so much 



92 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

wood. If he could have sent it to Chicago, it would have 
been worth a good deal more than so much fuel. If he 
could as cheaply have sent it to New York as to Chicago it 
would have brought him a still greater price ; and its value 
to him would have been increased with every market he 
could reach. When I was a boy, Ohio had no railroads, 
and the farmers near Cincinnati used to sell eggs in that 
market for three cents a dozen, because that was their only 
market. Railroads have so greatly increased for them the 
facility of exchanging eggs, that they now get even in 
Cincinnati probably at least six or eight times as much as 
formerly. You can see that they gain this great advantage 
simply by increased facility of exchange. Railroads have 
extended their market for selling eggs. 

252. Nor is this increased facility of exchanging eggs 
for other products a benefit to the farmer alone ; for if for- 
merly, for lack of cheap transportation, eggs were very 
cheap in Cincinnati, they were very dear in many other 
places. To facilitate the exchange only equalized the 
prices, and thus increased the comfort of the mass of con- 
sumers, and also the wealth of the mass of producers. For 
if eggs were anywhere very dear, that is a proof that they 
were scarce there ; and facility of exchange created abun- 
dance where before was scarcity. 

253. Pray fix in your mind, therefore, this fundamental 
truth, that every impediment to tJie excliange of products is 
an injury ; and that every removal of such an impediment 
is a benefit, because it increases the rewards of the mass of 
producers, and the abundance, and hence the comfort and 
happiness \ of the mass of consumers. 

254. Hence the satisfaction with which people welcome 
railroads ; the benefit of steamboats, steamships, bridges, 
and all other means by which we decrease the cost of 



COMMERCE 93 

transportation. For you can see that if a farmer can send 
his eggs to only one place, Cincinnati, where men want to 
buy eggs, he can not hope to get as much for them as if he 
could — with cheap transportation — send them to any one 
of a dozen cities. And as he would send his eggs only to 
places where they would bring a higher price — where 
therefore eggs were scarce — cheap transportation, by cre- 
ating abundance in those places, would benefit consumers 
there. 

255. Commerce means the exchange of products. If I 
have more hides than I need, and you have more clothing 
than you need, and if I want clothing and you hides, it is 
plain that we shall make an exchange of our surpluses if 
we can get together and agree upon a price. It is clear, 
too, that we shall both benefit by such an exchange, because 
tvhen it is made, each of us will have less of the articles 
which he could not use, and more of those which he wanted. 

256. Thus you see that unimpeded commerce is a bene- 
fit to the mass of producers ; and that every impediment 
preventing a part of the owners of surplus clothing from 
reaching a market of hides, while it may be an advantage 
to the few who do reach it, and who would thus have a 
monopoly, would be an injury, first, to those who were pre- 
vented from reaching it ; but, second, and more important, 
to all those who were anxious to exchange hides for 
clothing. 

257. Every impediment to free exchange, therefore, 
whether natural or artificial, is an injury to the mass of 
consumers — who are the whole people. 

258. Nevertheless, every act of exchange which takes 
place, even where a close monopoly exists on one side, or 
in regard to one product, is still a benefit, for it increases 
abundance and comfort, though in a less measure than if 



94 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

the monopoly did not impede free exchange ; and thus it 
would be wrong to say that men, under any circumstances, 
become poorer by voluntary exchange. It is, however, 
quite certain that capital increases far more sloivly and 
industry is hampered where impediments exist to a free 
exchange of surplus products. 

259. Impediments to the exchange of products are 
either natural or artificial. The natural obstacles are very 
numerous, but may be comprised under the general head 
of distance. A river is a serious impediment to commerce, 
until it is bridged or a ferryboat crosses it ; an ocean is a 
greater impediment, and can be overcome only with the 
help of ships. Differences in language and habits are 
natural impediments. 

260. Different and distant parts of the earth have dif- 
ferent climates, soils, and capacities for production, so that 
what is produced in one country is needed in many others ; 
and every part of the 'earth is fitted to produce something 
which is desired by the people of other parts. 

261. You will quickly see the advantage of this, for it 
compels mankind to intercourse with each other ; and 
commerce is thus one of the main agents in spreading 
civilization over the world, in bringing men and nations to- 
gether in a humane and brotherly spirit ; in subduing bar- 
barism, preserving the peace, and in increasing constantly 
the area over which industry and self-denial are rewarded, 
property is made secure, and civilization becomes possible. 

262. Imagine a nation which was so favored by climate 
and soil that it could and did produce within its bounds all 
and everything that its members required, and you will see 
that such a nation would soon cease to have any influence 
upon the outer world — for good at least ; it would become 
selfish ; would scorn, because it did not need, commerce ; 



COMMERCE 95 

would lose the immense advantage of intercourse with other 
nations ; and having no such commerce or intercourse, would 
presently contract vices, such as ignorance, superstition, con- 
tempt of foreigners, and disregard of justice, which would 
degrade its civilization. For it is by intercourse and not 
by isolation that men become intelligent and humane. 

263. To overcome difficulties forces us to exercise inge- 
nuity, courage,, persistence, patience, daring, and enterprise 
— all those which we can call manly virtues. Impediments 
to intercourse between men in distant parts of the earth, 
for the purpose of exchanging products essential to our 
comfort, impel us to overcome such impediments, and make 
us feel that we are the higher and the better, as well as the 
wealthier and more comfortable beings, in the measure that 
we do overcome them. 

264. Artificial obstacles to exchange arise out of laws, 
which either prohibit exchange with foreigners entirely, as 
formerly in Japan, or lay a penalty on such exchange as 
regards certain products : this is still done in many coun- 
tries, among them our own. 

265. All such artificial restrictions are impolitic, injuri- 
ous, and, unless all commerce is prohibited, necessarily 
partial and unjust. 

266. It is possible to imagine a nation determining to 
seclude itself entirely from the world, and therefore totally 
prohibiting commercial as well as other intercourse with 
foreigners. In such a case the whole people accept less 
abundance, and deny themselves comforts and luxuries 
which they can not themselves produce. All are injured, 
all suffer loss and deprivation ; and if injustice is done, it 
is by all to all. 

267. But among civilized nations like our own, the pro- 
hibitions and penalties on foreign exchange are nowhere of 



96 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

this character ; they are always partial — being laid prac- 
tically upon a few articles ; and thus an essential injustice 
is done to those who would, if they were allowed, exchange 
their products for those articles which are forbidden them, 
or who must pay a penalty for such exchange. For 
instance, if I am a farmer, who need to exchange my sur- 
plus wheat for clothing, it is surely an injustice to me if 
the law forbids me to make this exchange wherever I may 
choose ; for, as we have seen, if by any impediment it 
narrows my market it lowers my profit. I may be able to 
get more cloth for my wheat in Germany than in my own 
neighborhood : a law which makes me pay a penalty for 
doing so is clearly partial and unjust. Or I may be a 
blacksmith, and prefer Swedish bars for my horseshoes ; 
why should you who make American bars urge a law to 
make me pay a penalty for my preference ? 

268. Fix in your mind that commerce is not a swindling 
transaction, but a purely beneficial operation ; that every act 
of honest trade increases the happiness and prosperity of all 
who are concerned in it ; that when we two exchange 
products, each is the more comfortable and the better off 
for the exchange ; for each has given that which he wanted 
less for that which he wanted more. 

269. Property, as you have before seen, originates in 
three acts : labor, self-denial, and exchange. A law which 
should interfere with a man's right to labor ought to be 
resisted by all sensible men as an injustice. A law which 
should limit the right of self-denial — or compel me to 
spend my accumulations as fast as I created them, would 
be no less unjust and monstrous. But a law which interferes 
with my right to exchange my surplus where I like is only 
more endurable to us because we are accustomed to it. It 
does not differ in principle. 



COMMERCE 97 

270. The most magnificent and conclusive example of 
the benefits of unobstructed commerce is afforded by our 
own country. The government of the United States pro- 
vides carefully for the most entire and unobstructed free- 
dom in the interchange of products over almost half of the 
North American continent, and no one doubts that it is to 
this absolute freedom of exchange that we owe our won- 
derful advance in wealth, as well as in the ingenuity and 
intelligence of our people. Consider what must have 
been our condition had Virginia been allowed to lay re- 
strictions and penalties on commercial intercourse with 
Pennsylvania, or New York to interfere with her citizens 
when they sought to exchange products with Massachu- 
setts, or the North with the South, or the East with the 
West. 

271. Yet if any such interference is beneficial, it would 
seem to be more necessary to protect the West against 
New England than against Europe ; or the South against 
the North than against England and France. For, the 
plea for such interference being that it is necessary to 
enable the establishment of manufactures at home, and to 
maintain a high rate of wages, it is clear that Michigan or 
Georgia manufactures, for instance, can be more easily 
undersold by Massachusetts or New York than by English 
or German manufacturers, who must carry their goods so 
much farther to market, and must also draw their raw 
materials from a greater distance ; and an ironmaster in 
such a State as Arkansas or California, which has no 
iron mines and few coal mines, would feel the competition 
of his Pennsylvania or Virginia rival far more keenly than 
that of an Englishman or German who must send his iron 
three thousand miles to our Atlantic seaboard. Yet we 
hear few complaints of such home competition ; and a 

NORD. — 7 



98 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

California shipyard has produced for our navy one of the 
finest battle ships in any navy. 

272. You must understand, however, that the people of 
the United States have long and deliberately consented to 
a policy in regard to external commerce which I have 
shown you to be injurious to the general welfare. No 
political party is yet united in demanding that the people 
shall be guaranteed the right of free exchange. Nor can 
it be doubted that the Congress has power to lay duties 
discriminating in favor of some branches of industry — 
and of course against others ; for it is the essence of such 
discrimination that it injures some while it benefits others. 

273. This is one of the great battle grounds of opinion 
in the United States; and as many large individual inter- 
ests are arrayed in favor of such discrimination, and as the 
masses who are injured have not the means for as com- 
pact an organization as the few whom self-interest guides, 
it is probable that we shall see protective tariffs for many 
years cumbering our statute books, and lessening the gen- 
eral prosperity. 

274. When the Constitution was adopted, most states- 
men still believed that a country needed such interference 
with the free exchange of products to enable the establish- 
ment of home manufactures ; hence the power given to 
Congress to " regulate commerce," which undoubtedly 
means, and has always been held to imply, the power to 
interfere with exchange, not merely for purposes of rev- 
enue, but for the object of " protecting," as it is called, 
home manufacturers. The first tariff or scale of external 
duties enacted by Congress had this object in view; and 
though unjust, partial, and impolitic, there is no doubt that 
Congress has the constitutional right thus to derange 
industry by partial laws. 



DIVERSITY OF INDUSTRIES 99 

275. One plea on which protective tariffs, as such inter- 
ferences are called, have been justified, is that thus only 
can we have diversified industries. If this were true, it 
would really justify the protectionist system — for diversi- 
fied industries are a great benefit to a nation. But in the 
next section I hope to show you that so far from favoring 
a diversity of industries, protective tariffs have really, in our 
country, discouraged and destroyed many small industries, 
and created a powerful, and, to the people, irresistible 
tendency of both capital and labor toward a few great 
industries. 

XXX 

OF DIVERSITY OF INDUSTRIES, MONOPOLIES, AND 

TRUSTS 

276. That nation or people is happiest which has the 
most widely diversified industries; because its members 
will be led inevitably to the exercise of great and varied 
ingenuity and enterprise, while at the same time capital, 
the fruit and reward of labor, will be more equally dis- 
tributed among the population than in a country where 
but a few industries are pursued. 

277. Take, for instance, a region devoted to grazing, or 
to the cultivation of cotton only, and you will find the mass 
of the people dull and subordinate, and the wealth in few 
hands. In like manner examine a district devoted mainly 
to the production of crude iron, coal, or cotton fabrics, and 
you will find the mass of the people subordinate, in poor 
circumstances, comparatively ignorant and unenterprising, 
and not ingenious, while the greater part of the wealth of 
the community is concentrated in a few hands. 

278. But find a district where the people are engaged in 



IOO POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

a multitude of small industries, and you are sure to find 
wealth more equally divided, comfort more widely diffused, 
and the people more enterprising, intelligent, ingenious, 
and independent. 

279. To contrive a system of laws, therefore, whose 
tendency and effect would be to draw large numbers from 
the smaller industries which they would naturally pursue, 
and concentrate their labors upon a single pursuit, would 
be to degrade the character of such a population, by mak- 
ing it less ingenious, enterprising, and independent than 
before ; and this the more if this single industry should 
be of a kind which required in the mass of those engaged 
in it but little skill or thought, and at the same time re- 
quired that much capital should be devoted to it. For in 
that case not only would the character of the people dete- 
riorate, but wealth would more and more be drawn away 
from the smaller industries, and concentrated in the larger, 
and the mass of the people would become in time less 
independent, prosperous, and comfortable. 

280. Now this grave injury has been done to large 
classes of our population by what is wrongly called the 
system of "Protection to Home Industry" which is simply 
an interference with the right of free exchange. 

281. To comprehend how " protective " laws, so called, 
degrade home industry, and prevent diversity of industries, 
I must first explain to you the natural progress of indus- 
try in any country. 

282. When a new country begins to receive population, 
men being scarce and land abundant, it is inevitable that 
wise men will turn to industries which require for their 
prosecution the least amount of labor, because the rate of 
wages will be high, laborers being few. Hence in our 
new territories grazing is at first a favorite and profitable 



DIVERSITY OF INDUSTRIES 10 1 

occupation. As population increases, lands rise in price, 
and farming is begun ; and presently villages make their 
appearance, where blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, wagon- 
makers, and shopkeepers gather, to supply the farmer's 
needs, and afford him for at least a part of his surplus 
products a near market. Capital or surplus rapidly in- 
creases in a new country ; as population continues to 
stream in, new industries are devised, and the region 
which at first imported everything except its meat be- 
comes more and more self-sustaining; for capital, intelli- 
gently directed, spies out the wants of the people and the 
natural resources and advantages of the land ; and it is 
not long before even some articles of manufacture begin 
to be exported to neighboring districts. 

283. By this time roads and perhaps railroads have been 
built, and, by lessening the cost of transportation, and 
increasing production, the cost of living has been greatly 
cheapened ; new enterprises no longer offer such great 
rewards as at first to capital, and the rate of interest has 
consequently fallen ; increasing population has lowered 
the rate of wages — without, however, necessarily lessen- 
ing the comfort of the laborers, for all prices are also less, 
as you have seen. Finally, there is a numerous class 
of hired laborers, whereas in the beginning almost every 
man was his own employer. At this stage, what we 
call manufactures naturally arise. Capital, seeking new 
means of profitable employment, provides machinery, raw 
material, and wages for the use of laborers also seeking 
new ways to earn a living. 

284. This is the natural course of a country's industries 
where arbitrary and partial laws are not used to force both 
capital and labor out of the channels nature has provided. 
In this natural development the ingenuity and enterprise 



102 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

of the people have constant exercise ; capital is for a long 
time pretty equally diffused, because there will be a great 
and increasing diversity of small industries ; the character 
of the population will be high, its independence great, 
and prosperity will be general. The greater operations of 
industry, which require extreme concentration of both 
capital and labor, will be deferred, until at last the coun- 
try's natural resources are fully explored, and the accumu- 
lation of wealth and the increase of population are both 
so great as to lead naturally and safely to such employ- 
ment for both. The stages of development in such a case 
will be slow, but sure, and there will be no great crisis 
or panic, nor any marked lowering of the condition of the 
people. Their ingenuity and desire for prosperity lead 
them to devise new industries and control new enterprises 
as fast as capital and labor offer to prosecute them ; and 
it is an important consideration that these new enterprises 
grow naturally out of the conditions of the country, as to 
climate and productions, and the wants of the people. 

285. Unfortunately this natural and sound growth is 
not permitted. Different motives, among which are na- 
tional pride, a desire for more showy production, the 
subtle fallacy of supplying a " home market," but mainly 
the greed for wealth and supremacy in individuals, unite 
to bring about the adoption of unjust and partial laws, en- 
acted to favor some special branch of industry. These 
laws, under the beguiling name of " Protection to Home 
Industry," lay heavy duties on a few foreign products, in 
order to enable those who produce these articles at home 
to charge a higher price for them, and to give them the 
command of the home market — which means only, as 
must be plain to you, to compel the mass of the people to 
buy of the favored individuals at a higher price than they 



DIVERSITY OF INDUSTRIES 103 

could, but for these laws, buy for elsewhere ; in other 
words, to impede the free exchange of products. 

286. For instance, New England capitalists — helped, I 
believe, originally by some Southern men — began to 
clamor for duties on foreign-made cotton goods ; and, con- 
trary to the wish of the first promoters of cotton manu- 
factures, a high duty was put on the importation of foreign 
calicoes, sheetings, and other manufactures of cotton. 

287. Of course, a duty on the foreign product is a 
bounty on the home product. The home manufacturer 
raises his price to the price at which the foreigner can sell 
after he has paid the duty. A duty on calicoes, therefore, 
confessedly makes calico — the home as well as the for- 
eign product — dearer than it would otherwise be ; and all 
who wear calico must pay more for dresses, in order that 
the insignificant number engaged in making calicoes at 
home shall obtain their bounty. 

288. Now it has never been pretended that the people 
of New England were starving when a duty was laid on 
calicoes and other cotton goods. They were, according to 
all accounts, an extremely industrious and ingenious peo- 
ple, engaged in such a multitude of small enterprises that 
"Yankee Notions" was the generic name of a great class 
of small inventions and products, all useful to mankind. 
Capital was widely dispersed in these petty industries, for 
which the character of the country and its inhabitants was 
well fitted ; large fortunes were few and not easily accumu- 
lated, but the average of comfort, intelligence, and public 
spirit was uncommonly high. 

289. The effect of the protective duty was, 1st, by 
offering an unnaturally high reward to capital, to draw 
that away from a number of the smaller industries, and 
concentrate it in a few great buildings filled with costly 



104 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

machinery ; 2d, to draw away a large part of the laboring 
population from their petty industries and their country 
homes into large manufacturing towns, and to employments 
which made them more dependent and less ingenious and 
self-helpful than before. 

290. The life of a mill or factory operative being of a 
kind offering few hopes of advancement, and a smaller 
chance of independence than intelligent and enterprising 
people like to submit to, the best class of the New Eng- 
land population presently withdrew from it, or never en- 
tered it; but capital — then not superabundant in the 
country — having been diverted to manufacturing on a 
great scale by the " protective " duty, was made less 
abundant for small enterprises. The temptation of cheap 
and fertile lands then drew off the most enterprising 
population to the Western States ; and the Yankee girls 
left the factories to fill the vacant places of those who had 
emigrated to the West. 

291. The manufacturers, to fill the gap, began sys- 
tematically to import foreigners, mostly of a low grade of 
intelligence, and have continued to do this to the pres- 
ent time ; with results evident to the country in a gradual 
but serious deterioration in the character of the popula- 
tion, and in the corruption of politics. 

292. To bring about these evils the women and children 
of the United States were compelled to pay tribute, dur- 
ing a great many years, every time they bought a new 
calico dress or a yard of muslin. Meantime this " pro- 
tection to home industry," or favoritism to a few at the 
cost of the great mass, has built up a few great fortunes, 
and a large population, subject, ignorant, to a large extent 
the easy prey of demagogues, and in many ways inferior 
to that it superseded. The average of comfort and intelli- 



DIVERSITY OF INDUSTRIES 105 

gence in New England is much lower than it was before 
" Protection." 

293. You see here that " Protection to Home Industry" 
was a curse to people who were " protected," at the same 
time that it was unjust to that great mass of the popu- 
lation, which, not being engaged in cotton manufactures, 
was not " protected," but had to pay, in higher prices for 
clothing, the cost of protection to a few. 

294. Take now another case, where an attempt was 
made to " protect" both the producers of a raw material 
and its manufacturers — of course once more at the ex- 
pense of the great mass of the people, who are consumers. 
The woolgrowers and the wool manufacturers combined 
to appeal to Congress for " protection," and " encourage- 
ment for their home industries" ; and their demands were 
granted. Naturally both American wool and American 
woolen goods immediately rose in price — that was the 
object of the men who asked for the high duties. Woolen 
shirts, trousers, coats, blankets, carpets thus cost more, in 
order that these two home industries might be favored. 

295. The exclusion of foreign wool and woolens caused, 
1st, a rapid and great increase in the production of Ameri- 
can wool, also in the price of mutton — for the farmers, 
sure of a high price for wool, would not sell so many 
sheep to the butchers as before. But mutton, too, is 
an article of universal consumption. 2d. The high duty 
caused the establishment of a large number of woolen 
mills, with expensive machinery, to build and work which 
capital was drawn from other industries where it was 
before usefully employed. At the same time people were 
drawn from farms and other employments into the woolen 
mills. Thus, as in New England in the previous case, 
the course of industry was in a double way changed. 



106 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

296. But hardly had all the woolgrowers and woolen 
manufacturers got fairly to work when it was discovered 
that the exclusion of foreign-grown wool from so large a 
market as the United States had made it so cheap in Eu- 
rope that manufacturers there could still sell their goods 
here, after paying the high duty, in competition with ours 
in our own market. Then followed a demand for still 
higher duties on the foreign goods. 

297. But this additional protection for themselves en- 
abled our manufacturers to import some foreign-grown 
wool ; whereupon the woolgrowers began to clamor ; they 
had greatly increased the product of wool — for sheep 
breed rapidly — and as many had paid high prices for 
sheep, they did not like to lose the benefit of protection. 

298. But it was reasonably urged by manufacturers 
that to exclude foreign wools entirely was to confine our 
manufacturers to making but few varieties of goods, and 
those not the most profitable, because, for most kinds of 
goods, the manufacturer needs to mix in the looms the 
wools of different climates and countries. Hence the 
exclusion of foreign wool, and an overstocked market in 
some kinds of goods, caused the stoppage of many fac- 
tories ; a general stagnation of the business — under the 
high duties, remember ; consequent fall in the demand 
for American wool, and prostration of the protected wool- 
growers ; all to the advantage of only a few wealthy and 
cautious manufacturers, who happened to be able to take 
advantage of the low prices. 

299. Here was a loss to farmers, manufacturers, and 
operatives by " protection." Nor was this all. Machinery 
lives, though men die. If it stands idle, it deteriorates ; 
new inventions supersede it by and by, and if it has stood 
idle it has not earned the cost of replacement ; hence ac- 



DIVERSITY OF INDUSTRIES 107 

tual loss of much capital. As to the workmen, drawn 
away from other and more healthful employments, and 
made more dependent than formerly, many were turned 
adrift. 

300. To achieve these miserable results — to cause loss 
to the farmers as well as to the manufacturers and their 
laborers, to derange an important industry, and benefit 
only a few speculators who were ready to take advantage 
of the general loss — the whole American people were 
obliged by a partial and unjust law to pay needlessly high 
prices for coats, trousers, blankets, carpets, flannels, and 
woolen dresses. 

301. Take yet another example, differing from the fore- 
going — the manufacture of crude and rolled iron, which 
includes pig and railroad and other bars. Laws placing a 
penalty on the use of foreign iron have existed on our 
statute books for a great number of years ; they were 
adopted on the plea that we possessed rich ores and 
abundant coal and limestone, and that we could not 
safely be dependent on foreign nations for so necessary 
an article as iron, because we might in such a case be very 
seriously inconvenienced in the case of war. I hope you 
are logician enough to see the fallacy in this proposition 
— it lies in the implication that without a penalty on the 
use of foreign iron, and a consequent bounty to the home 
manufacturer, no American would have engaged in this 
industry. But if, as is most true, we have abundant sup- 
plies of excellent ores, fuel, and fluxes — that is to say, if 
nature has put us into an uncommonly advantageous posi- 
tion for making iron, surely it is too much to say that 
we could not or would not use these natural advantages 
without an additional bounty from the government. 

302. The " protective " bounty, however, caused a rapid 



108 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

flow of capital and labor from various other industries to 
this crude pursuit — one of the lowest of all, the least ele- 
vating to those engaged in it. The capital and labor were 
diverted from industries naturally more productive, and 
this of course put a serious loss upon the general commu- 
nity; because thus less aggregate wealth was produced, 
and the means of exchange were lessened. But, further, 
the hope of extraordinary gains from protection — which 
promised the ironmaster a monopoly of the home market 
— led men to rash ventures. Many placed their iron 
furnaces badly, so that they labored under natural dis- 
advantages, and needed protection, in fact, not from 
European ironmasters, but from their more judicious 
neighbors. , 

303. Another result of high protection is that the 
masters of the subsidized industries are not quick to in- 
troduce new and improved machinery, and thus cripple 
our industries. They are less apt to use their brains. 
Thus, some years ago an American, visiting an English 
manufacturer of a specialty in woolen goods, discovered 
that, in spite of our high tariff, he continued to export his 
goods to the United States ; and asking curiously how it 
could be afforded, the Englishman replied by showing him 
that he had just put in an entire set of new and greatly 
improved machinery, and had sold his old and wasteful 
machinery to a manufacturer in the United States — to 
his competitor, namely, who depended not on ingenuity, 
or cheap means of production, but on " protection," and 
no doubt petitioned Congress for higher duties as soon as 
he had set up the Englishman's cast-off machines. 

304. The object of a " protective" duty on foreign iron 
is, of course, to enable the American ironmaster to charge 
a higher price for his product. But think for a minute 



DIVERSITY OF INDUSTRIES IO9 

what an addition to the price of iron means to our own 
people. It means that the carpenter shall pay more for 
his tools, the blacksmith for his horseshoes, the house- 
builder for his nails, the housekeeper for her pots and 
kettles, the farmer for his implements — it means that 
houses shall be dearer and house rent higher ; that all 
agricultural operations shall cost more ; that all machinery 
shall be more costly, and therefore all clothing and other 
necessaries of life produced by machinery shall be dearer 
to the poor; and, finally, that railroads, which use enor- 
mous quantities of iron in rails, locomotives, and cars, shall 
be more costly, and therefore freights higher forever to the 
farmer who wants to get his produce to market. 

305. That is to say, the duty on iron has taken some- 
thing out of the pocket of every man, woman, and child in 
the United States, and by that much lessened their comfort 
and prosperity ; and it has done this, as you have seen, to 
make the fortunes of a comparatively small number of 
capitalists engaged in the production of iron. 

306. We have in recent years become, under the artifi- 
cial stimulus of protective tariffs, a great manufacturing 
nation ; with the result that we produce, of protected arti- 
cles, more than our own people can consume. Statisticians 
say that, in normal conditions, w r e are able to manufacture 
in nine months what we can consume only in a year. 
Hence, periodical closing of factories, to the loss and dis- 
tress of the workpeople. 

307. But another and curious result is that more and 
more the surplus of our protected factories is thrown on 
foreign markets, where it is sold at a price lower than is 
exacted from our own people by our manufacturers. Thus, 
to take only one example, during many years in which a 
high duty on copper prevailed, American copper was sold 



IIO POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

in the London market at a lower price than in this, the 
country of its production ; of course, to the disadvantage 
and loss of all Americans who used copper. 

308. Again, as high duties overstimulate production 
in the " protected " branches of industry, we see the cre- 
ation of monopolies, called trusts. These undertake to 
maintain artificially high prices, by paying some of their 
competitors to close their works, which, of course, not 
merely limits production, but throws workmen out of em- 
ployment. One of the earliest of these efforts to limit the 
supply of a necessary of life was called the "Salt Ring." 
Congress, to please certain influential American producers 
of salt, laid a very heavy duty on foreign salt. When I 
saw, at that time, on a journey through West Virginia, 
some salt works standing idle, and asked the reason why, 
I was told that the owners of these works were paid by 
the " Salt Ring " a fixed yearly sum to close their works, 
discharge their workmen, and, by so much as they would 
have produced, limit the American people's supply of salt. 

309. " Trusts," as they are called, are attempts to monop- 
olize production and maintain artificially high prices. They 
have their foundation in protective tariffs. You will see 
this if you reflect that such a monopoly, aiming to control 
any branch of production, would find its scheme at once 
checked and overthrown, under freedom of commerce, by 
importations from other countries. Such a "trust" could 
succeed, if commerce were free, only if it could persuade or 
force all foreign producers in the same branch to enter its 
combination. 

310. The interference with commerce and the right of 
exchange by "protective" duties strikes, as I have shown 
you, at the foundations of honest industry. // is an inter- 
ference ivith real freedom. It injures in many ways even 



DIVERSITY OF INDUSTRIES III 

a simply organized or semibarbarous community ; but as 
society becomes more highly complicated, the injury done 
by such partial and therefore unjust laws becomes con- 
stantly more serious and threatening. And these increas- 
ing evil results affect, not merely the physical, but also the 
moral welfare of the communities which tolerate them. 
They suffer not merely by the derangement of industry, 
which makes labor for wages uncertain and unsatisfactory ; 
not merely in causing artificial high prices, which are an 
injury to the mass of the people who are consumers of 
products ; not merely in giving opportunity to monopolists 
at the expense of workmen thrown out of employment or 
irregularly employed. These are serious material disad- 
vantages. 

311. But such partial and unjust interferences with one 
of the most important of human rights bring also moral 
evils of a serious character : the increased greed for gain 
and for great wealth, in the more active and less scrupu- 
lous members of the community, to whom such laws offer 
tempting opportunities ; the corruption of legislative bodies 
by them in their efforts to secure selfish advantages by the 
enactment of laws ; the lowering of public spirit ; the nar- 
rowing of the people's chances for a satisfactory living ; 
their consequent decrease in intelligence and independence ; 
the keeping alive of popular ferment and discontent. States- 
manship and true leadership perish where the main thing 
required of a public man as a leader is to secure for his 
capitalist constituents laws intended for their advantage, 
and not for the common good. 

312. We see this exemplified already in several of our 
States, in the confessed deterioration in character of their 
representatives in both Houses of Congress, as well as 
in the legislative bodies — where large communities have 



112 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

been taught, for many years, that " protective " laws, — 
that is to say, partial and unjust laws for the merely 
material benefit of a few, — are their sole or greatest inter- 
est in the Union of States which makes up our government. 



XXXI 

OF LABOR AND CAPITAL 

313. The spirit of accumulation — of industry and self- 
denial — being once aroused in a people, and encouraged 
by their security in the enjoyment of property, and facility 
in exchanging their surplus products, which gives them 
value, it is clear, considering the difference in men — some 
being weak of body, less persistent, less ingenious, or less 
self-denying than others — that inevitably some will accu- 
mulate less property than others ; and that many will, in 
fact, accumulate nothing, but consume all they produce, 
and as fast as they produce it. 

314. But in many emergencies of a man's life it is abso- 
lutely necessary that he shall have some surplus to start 
with. Take as an instance the gold hunters in the early 
days of California. A multitude of men rushed to the rich 
placer diggings, hopeful of speedy fortune ; but a large 
part of them presently discovered that they must eat and 
drink, and be clothed and sheltered, while they looked for 
and dug out gold ; and not having a surplus sufficient to 
provide themselves with food, clothing, and shelter in this 
emergency, what should they do ? Die ? No ; a man who 
found himself in that situation sought out another who bad 
a surplus, and said to him, Give me food, clothing, and 
shelter, or the means of getting these, and I will give you 
my strength and skill, until I have saved by self-denial a 



LABOR AND CAPITAL 113 

surplus sufficient to enable me to prospect and dig on my 
own account. That is to say, he became a laborer for hire, 
or wages. 

315. Suppose now he could have found no one thus 
ready to hire him and pay him wages. Suppose every 
man who had a surplus (this surplus being capital) had laid 
it away in a strong box, and refused to use it in paying 
wages for the labor of the man without surplus. Do you 
not see that the chief sufferer in this case — the only imme- 
diate sufferer, indeed — would be the man without surplus 
or capital, and in need of food and other necessaries of life, 
which he could get only by wages — or theft? 

316. But here you have the whole question of capital and 
labor ; and if anybody tells you that there is a necessary 
and natural antagonism between capital and labor, you 
may safely set him down as a misguided person. 

317. Capital is simply accumulated savings. He who 
has it becomes the enemy of labor when he hides his capital 
in an old stocking, or a fireplace, or in the ground ; when 
he refuses to make use of it. When he does this we call 
him a miser, and despise and dislike him, as is but just, 
for then only he sets up his selfish interest against his 
fellow-men. 

318. But while property, surplus, or capital is used by 
its possessors, it is a benefit to the whole mass of those 
who have no capital, and to whose advantage it is, 
as in the case of the needy miner, to be able to receive 
wages for their labor. The more numerous the laboring 
or non-capitalist class is, the more important to them, you 
must see, is a large accumulation of capital, for they de- 
pend on that to enable them to earn wages, and in their 
turn, if they will exercise self-denial, to save a surplus ; 
and no one is so seriously injured as the laborer for wages, 



114 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

by any event — be it a war, an unjust law, a corrupt gov- 
ernment, or a currency of variable and uncertain value — 
which lessens the safety of accumulations, alarms their 
owners, and makes them reluctant to venture on new 
enterprises. 

319. It is therefore fortunate for the less prosperous of 
mankind that the spirit of accumulation leads those who 
own property to seek ways in which to use this very prop- 
erty or capital in adding to their stores ; for thus the 
efforts of the poor, the non-capitalists, are lightened, and 
made more productive for themselves than they otherwise 
could be. 

320. Capital is simply accumulated savings. In the 
United States any laborer may hope to acquire property, 
if he has health and intelligence, by the exercise of industry 
and economy ; and it is one of the commonest, as well as, 
to a thoughtful man, one of the most satisfactory experi- 
ences, to see a young man, after laboring faithfully for 
hire for a time, presently begin on his own account, and 
by and by become, in his turn, the employer of other men's 
labor as well as his own. 

321. While it will probably, for a long time to come, be 
necessary, as well as advantageous, to the mass of men to 
labor for wages, that country is the most fortunate in which 
it is the easiest for an indtistrioiis and self-denying citizen 
to lift himself from the condition of a hired man to that of 
independence, however modest. It is extremely important 
that neither laws nor customs shall interfere with this 
change, but that all doors shall be opened for it. For, 
though not one in a thousand of the laborers for wages 
may choose thus to elevate himself to independence, it 
adds materially to the contentment and happiness of all to 
believe that if they chose to do so they might ; and that 



CORPORATIONS, AND LIMITED LIABILITY LAWS 115 

efforts not beyond their powers would always open the 
way to them. 

322. As the accumulated wealth or savings in any coun- 
try is thus a source of subsistence and a means of advance- 
ment, not merely to the individual owners of this wealth, 
capital, or property, but to the whole population, and 
especially to that part of it which labors for wages, and who 
could not receive wages if accumulated capital did not exist, 
or if it were destroyed, so it may be said without exaggera- 
tion that 110 part of the community has so vital an interest in 
the abundance, freedoyn, and security of capital as those who 
labor for wages. For though the individual capitalist may 
be seriously inconvenienced by events which lessen or 
make insecure his accumulations, he has still the resource 
of removing his capital, especially if it consists of money, 
to a more secure place ; of withdrawing it, at whatever loss, 
from enterprises which afford employment by giving the 
means out of which to pay wages ; or, in the final resort, of 
living upon it without seeking any return for its use. In 
any of these cases the laborers for hire suffer first and 
most severely. This you may see in every great panic 
and business crisis in our country, when those who possess 
a surplus or capital at once begin to hoard it, and to with- 
draw it from enterprises. 

XXXII 

OF CORPORATIONS, AND LIMITED LIABILITY LAWS 

323. A corporation is an association of persons united 
to promote a common purpose, either of pleasure or busi- 
ness. Thus a club, a church or hospital, an insurance or 
railroad company, may work as a corporation. 

324. Corporations are called in law " artificial persons " 



Il6 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

because they have no natural existence, but are the crea- 
tures of law. Observe that while individuals have but a 
limited duration of life, a corporation may have an exist- 
ence far longer than any individual life ; it renews its 
youth by the selection of new members as the old die. 

325. Originally each member of a corporation was per- 
sonally liable for the debts, and, in a degree also, for the 
misconduct of the corporation. 

326. A contrivance called a "Limited Liability" law, 
dating from about the middle of the nineteenth century, 
abolished this unlimited personal liability, and placed those 
corporations which took advantage of it — as all now do — 
on an entirely different basis. Under " Limited Liability " 
laws, each shareholder in a corporation is liable only for 
the amount of his own shares, and not at all for the cor- 
ruption or other misconduct of the corporation. 

327. This strict limitation of the responsibilities of 
shareholders has done a great deal to promote commercial 
and manufacturing enterprise and activity, and to enable 
in particular, by the use of capital contributed by great num- 
bers of people, to forward the construction of many great 
works, such as railroads, telegraphs, bridges, factories, 
mines, etc. But while it has thus been useful in some im- 
portant respects, it begins to be seen that it has had also 
some seriously evil results. 

328. It has brought about an injurious separation of 
interests between the stockholders and the workmen em- 
ployed in their enterprise. The shareholders may live 
anywhere ; they need not even be inhabitants of the coun- 
try in which their enterprise is carried on. They look 
only to their individual profits or dividends, and feel no 
concern for the welfare or character of those they em- 
ploy. They confide their interests to a board of directors, 



CORPORATIONS, AND LIMITED LIABILITY LAWS I 17 

who are their managers, and have, in effect, the sole power 
and control. 

329. As one result, this system has given opportunity 
for immense and unscrupulous speculations by directors in 
such N companies, who, in numerous cases, have used their 
power of control even against the general good of their 
shareholders, and solely for their personal advantage. 

330. Again, such corporations have, in numerous in- 
stances, influenced governments, State, Federal, or city, to 
give them privileges injurious to the public good ; and they 
have been tempted to get these by the use of corrupting 
influences on legislative bodies. 

331. "Limited Liability" laws have also been helpful 
to the creation and maintenance of monopolies. And they 
have increased, abnormally, the vice of speculation or 
gambling, demoralizing to the community. 

332. All these and other evils are increased by the fact 
that such corporations are not always content to work 
under general laws, but seek special charters ; and it may 
be taken for granted that when a " Limited Liability " 
corporation seeks a special charter, it has for one of its 
objects to obtain special advantages injurious to the public. 

333. While, therefore, " Limited Liability " laws will no 
doubt continue, it is the conviction of many wise citizens 
that the whole system needs to be thoroughly recast and 
improved, so as to guard more carefully the rights of the 
people against the vast aggregations of money which 
such laws draw into the control of a few men — to limit 
their powers and increase their responsibilities. 

334. Corporations ought to be very rigidly held to the 
strict performance of their duties to the public, and their 
directors should be subject to severe punishment, not 
merely by money fines, but by imprisonment, for failure 



Il8 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

in duty or malversation of their trust. The privileges 
granted them ought to be much more carefully defined 
and limited than they are under present laws. 

335. To labor for such a necessary and useful reform 
would be one of the most beneficent acts of Trades Unions, 
of which I will next tell you. 



XXXIII 
OF TRADES UNIONS AND STRIKES 

336. Trades Unions are associations of men working 
for wages, having for their object to guard their interests 
as bodies of laboring men. They seek, by united effort, 
to obtain " better terms"; and they have an undoubted 
and complete right to such association. They have their 
justification, if any were needed, in the existence of 
"Limited Liability" laws, which enable and favor the 
exercise of vast, and as yet badly limited, powers in the 
hands of a few shrewd and often unscrupulous employers. 

337. Wisely managed, such associations of hired laborers 
may do, and in some cases in this country have actually 
done, good, not only to their members, but to society at 
large. Their serious fault is that on the whole they have 
not accomplished nearly the good, even for themselves, 
which they might and ought to have done if their aims 
had been higher and broader, and more wisely founded on 
the general welfare ; as they would have been, if they had 
sought for advice, or even leadership, men trained in eco- 
nomical laws, and capable of framing for them a wise and 
far-reaching policy, instead of the hand-to-mouth policy 
which most of these associations have followed in this 
country. 



TRADES UNIONS AND STRIKES 119 

338. For trades unions and labor societies in general 
arise out of a perfectly just feeling, among hired laborers, 
that they are less comfortable than they wish to be. Edu- 
cation has, in all civilized countries, given to the great 
class of laborers for wages the taste and desire for a 
greater amount of comfort than contented them in other 
days. But some of the theories on which they act are 
not merely unsound, but tend to defeat the very ends they 
have in view, by repelling from their ranks a great body 
of workingmen whom, for success, they ought of course 
to attract. 

339. It is one of the serious faults of trades unions 
and other labor associations that they hold that men have 
a vested interest in their employment; that a mason, for 
instance, has a right to his living as a mason ; that society 
owes him a living, and on such terms as his union pro- 
poses, by that trade. I wish particularly to warn you 
against this error. No man has the least right to subsist- 
ence as merely a mason, or a shoemaker, a lawyer, a 
clergyman, a tailor, a bricklayer, or a miner. If his labor 
as a mason is surplus, if no more masons are wanted when 
he comes along with his trowel, it is his duty to go at some- 
thing else. A man who regards himself as only a shoe- 
maker, a mason, a tailor, a bricklayer, a bookkeeper, or a 
clerk, sacrifices his independence, and makes himself the 
sport of circumstances. In our days, when new inven- 
tions continually change the methods of labor, it is espe- 
cially hazardous for men to bind themselves for life to a 
single employment ; and those only can hope to benefit 
both themselves and their fellow-laborers who, when they 
find their occupation overcrowded, have courage and inde- 
pendence enough to seek a new calling, or a new field 
of labor. 



120 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

340. When wages in any industry fall to a point too low 
to afford the laborers engaged in it a comfortable subsist- 
ence, and with prudence and economy a small surplus, that 
is a proof that labor presses too severely upon the capital 
which can be profitably employed in that industry. Sup- 
pose, now, ten thousand persons employed in such an 
industry, and all enrolled in a trades union. Their present 
course would be to strike. Their trice course would be 
to use the fund which every trades union accumulates, to 
send surplus members to a region where labor is better re- 
warded ; that is to say, to reestablish the disturbed equi- 
librium. 

341. There are no surplus men in the world: 
when any one appears to be so, he is only in the wrong 
place. Enable him to go elsewhere, and teach him that he 
shall, if need be, do something else, and he is no longer 
surplus, but highly necessary to civilization. More than 
one half of our planet still lies waste and useless, and suf- 
fers for lack of strong arms and stout hearts to redeem it. 

342. It is another fault of trades unions, resulting from 
the first named, that some members of unions consider 
themselves at liberty to oppose, intimidate, and sometimes 
physically injure nonmembers who are of the same trade. 
I want you to consider this carefully ; because it is a very 
grave matter to all workingmen, whether they are members 
of labor associations or not. 

343. When laborers for wages make a demand upon 
their employer, accompanied with a threat that if he re- 
fuses they will leave him, they are said to "strike." 

344. Of course, every workman has a right to make his 
own terms with his employer ; and it can make no differ- 
ence — so far as right goes — whether he acts singly or 
whether he joins a number, great or small, of his fellow- 



TRADES UNIONS AND STRIKES 121 

laborers in arranging or rearranging these terms. All 
laws having for their object the prevention of such com- 
binations and strikes are therefore unjust and oppressive. 
Every man has an inalienable right to seek to better his 
condition, and the means he uses for that end lie within 
his discretion, saving only, of course, that he must keep tJie 
peace. As a workman lias no defense against a7i oppressive 
employer except the threat to leave him, it would be the 
extreme of injustice to deprive him of that. 

345. His strike may bring loss and inconvenience, not 
only upon his employer, but upon the general community: 
that does not lessen his right to strike, or to combine with 
others in a strike. It may be unwise, and bring suffering 
upon him and his associates and their families : that, too, 
does not impair his right. In short, when a laborer strikes, 
he exercises only the liberty of decidi7ig to whom and on 
what terms lie will hire his labor ; and to interfere with 
that right would be to take away his freedom and make 
him a slave. 

346. But the rights he has a7id uses he must allow to 
others ; and the striker has no right to coerce any other 
workingman to join him; when he does that he becomes 
a criminal of a very grave kind, for his wrong affects the 
rights of all ' workingmen. If it were granted that a striker 
might rightfully force another workman to join him, he 
would thereby give up his own rights and liberties ; for 
clearly, if he may abridge the freedom of another, somebody 
else, by the same right % may lessen his. If you have a right 
to force me not to work, another may, by the same right, 
force you to work. The striker therefore encourages the 
grossest and most absurd tyranny against himself when he 
interferes to force some other man to cease work. 

347. A "strike " is the crudest and least advantageous 



122 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

way to cure a labor grievance. If it is accompanied by 
violence, it becomes a crime. Trades unions, as they come 
under wiser leadership, will use the means they are able 
to accumulate to seek out new fields of labor, and will 
teach their members energetically that laivful liberty is the 
chief glory of a nation and its maintenance the most im- 
portant duty of a citizen ; that with patience and by lawful 
methods, all abuses can be removed or cured in a free 
country ; that no man has a vested interest in a trade or 
employment, because that would create a monopoly. 

348. Perfection comes very slowly under free govern- 
ment ; abuses are slowly cured. But they are cured, 
while under a despotism they only flourish and increase. 
Our " Limited Liability " laws are not perfect, and as they 
stand open the door to many demoralizing abuses. Our 
trades unions are not yet wisely managed. But while all 
good citizens unite to maintain lawful liberty in the land, 
all abuses will be on the way to removal or cure. 



XXXIV 

OF PROHIBITORY LAWS, SO CALLED 

349. Benevolent and philanthropic men, unless they 
are also wise, which is not always the case, are fond of try- 
ing to make men virtuous by act of legislature. Long 
experience has shown, however, that purely social evils or 
excesses, or even prejudices, can not be cured by laws. 

350. The intemperate use of spirituous liquors is one of 
the greatest curses to which modern society is exposed ; it 
is the cause of at least three quarters of the vice, crime, 
poverty, pauperism, and misery to be found in our country. 
If you were to cut from the newspapers all the reports of 



PROHIBITORY LAWS, SO CALLED 1 23 

murders and attempts to murder during the year, you 
would find that at least three out of four arose out of the 
misuse of spirituous liquors. If you trace to its source 
any case of crime, poverty, or extreme misery you may 
meet, the chances are at least four to one you will find 
" Rum did it." If we could prevent the misuse of spirit- 
uous liquors, we should save at least one half of the taxes 
collected by States, cities, and counties, and very apprecia- 
bly raise the average of comfort and prosperity among the 
people. The gravity of this evil is so generally recognized 
that the word " Intemperance " has come to have a narrow 
application in the public mind, being used generally to 
signify the misuse of alcoholic drinks ; though men and 
women may be and constantly are intemperate in many 
other things, as in eating, in the strife after wealth or 
social or political distinction, or in their use of cards and 
other means of amusement ; and I have known boys who 
were intemperate in eating candy and gingerbread, in 
the use of firecrackers on the Fourth of July, or in novel 
reading. 

351. When a boy manifests a morbid and depraved 
desire for candy, judicious parents deny him this in- 
dulgence — but they do not necessarily deprive all his 
brothers and sisters who have no such morbid craving. So 
when a man has contracted a passion for gambling, he 
does well to avoid the use of cards entirely ; but it does 
not follow, because some men intemperately waste their 
means in poker playing, that all elderly ladies and gentle- 
men should be forbidden a harmless and pleasant game of 
whist. 

352. In many of our States, however, philanthropic 
persons demand what is called a Prohibitory Liquor Law 
— a law entirely forbidding the manufacture, importation, 



124 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

and sale of spirituous liquors as a beverage ; and they 
demand this because they believe the only way to extirpate 
the vice of intemperate drinking is to stop the use of 
liquors entirely. 

353. Lawmakers ', in order that their labors may be 
effective and useful, are bound to bear in mind the pas- 
sions and natural tastes of mankind. Not every wrong 
or evil can be cured by law ; and there are matters which 
the wise lawmaker leaves unnoticed on the statute books. 

354. Further, it is important for you to know that any 
law is unwise which has not the general favor of the 
community to which it is to be applied ; for if a law has 
not this general countenance and support in public opinion, 
it can not be enforced in a free state. It is only a despotic 
ruler who can, by force of arms, terrify and compel his 
subjects into a change of their habits. 

355. In legislating upon the subject of spirituous liquors, 
a wise lawmaker would remember that the craving for stim- 
ulants is very common among mankind ; that spirituous 
liquors and wines are of important use in diseases, and when 
moderately used are doubtless of service in preventing some 
diseases ; that the right of a man to decide whether or not 
he needs a stimulant can not be declared by any general 
law, because each case must necessarily be judged upon 
its own features, and it must therefore practically be left 
to himself ; that it is not a function of law to prevent a man s 
injuring himself — else the government would have to in- 
terfere in every act of our lives, but only to prevent him 
from injuring others ; and that, finally, a law cutting off 
the supply of an article in common demand cannot be 
carried into effect without vexatious and justly hateful 
searches and interference with individual desires and 
tastes. To a wise lawmaker, therefore, greatly as he 



PROHIBITORY LAWS, SO CALLED 1 25 

might be impressed with the evils arising to society out 
of the misuse of spirituous liquors, a general law totally 
prohibiting their sale within a State, or the United States, 
would seem inexpedient, because it could not be enforced ; 
and if it could be, would involve an unjust and vexatious 
interference with individual rights. 

356. Prohibitory liquor laws are thus unwise, and their 
adoption ought to be opposed, because they are directed, 
not against the abuse, but against the use of an article. 
But society has a right to seek, by judicious regulations, to 
protect itself against the results of the misuse of liquors. 
It has a right to exact of the retail liquor seller a tax or 
penalty for the privilege of pursuing his injurious calling, 
and to establish and enforce severe penalties for selling 
without such permit or license. It may rightly levy a fine 
upon the liquor seller in whose house a drunken man is 
found, and put a penalty upon habitual drunkenness — 
which might very justly be enforced labor for the benefit 
of his family. Also the community may refuse entirely to 
license barrooms or other places for the sale of liquor at 
retail and its consumption on the premises. Moreover, it 
would be eminently just to devote the proceeds of liquor 
licenses to the support of the hospitals, poorhouses, orphan 
asylums, jails, and penitentiaries which the misuse of strong 
drink does so much to fill ; and the necessities of these 
charitable and penal institutions might be made, in any 
State or county, the measure of the license fees which 
should be exacted from liquor sellers, instead of fixing a 
mere arbitrary sum. In this way, at least those who keep 
and frequent tippling-houses would be obliged to make up 
to the community some part of the money loss inflicted 
upon it by their vice. 

357. In the vain attempt to prevent the use of intoxi- 



126 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

eating liquors, the temperance people have neglected some 
effective measures for lessening the misuse — which is all 
they have any business with. It has been practically 
demonstrated, for instance, that it is a great help toward 
temperance in the use of alcoholic drinks, to empower 
small communities, townships, or even school districts, and 
wards in cities, to decide, by a vote of the inhabitants, the 
question whether retail liquor licenses shall be granted or 
denied within their bounds. This is called " local option/' 
and I will proceed to explain to you its uses. 



XXXV 

OF "LOCAL OPTION" 

358. " Local option " is an application of the principle 
of decentralization, which was explained to you in Section 
VIII. 

359. In our political system, as you have read, some 
things are assigned to the Federal Government, some to 
the State government, and some by this to the county, city, 
and township governments. It has been seen by wise men 
that some matters which have been usually left to the State, 
or to the counties and cities, might advantageously be 
assigned to the smaller political subdivisions. 

360. For instance, a compulsory school law is found to 
be very difficult of enforcement over a whole State. In some 
parts public opinion would readily sustain such a law ; in 
others it is opposed, and where this is the case such a law 
is likely to be a dead letter. Again, a law refusing liquor 
licenses would be sustained by public sentiment in some 
localities, but would be openly violated in others, where the 
public opinion was decidedly hostile to it. 



PARTY GOVERNMENT 1 27 

361. If, now, instead of adopting one rule for all the 
people of a State, a legislature should empower every town- 
ship, city ward, or school district to declare by a vote of its 
citizens, to be taken once a year, whether within the limits 
of such a subdivision licenses should he, granted, ox refused, it 
is evident that, as each of these small subdivisions would de- 
cide for itself, its inhabitants would be directly thrown upon 
their responsibility. If the majority wished tippling-shops, 
they would vote for licensing them ; if they wished to ex- 
tirpate them, they would vote to refuse licenses; but it 
would be certain that public sentiment would enforce the law. 
Moreover, by such an expedient the friends of temperance 
would be able to raise the question once a year, to bring it 
prominently before the people in each locality, and to show 
the people by statistical comparisons the economical and 
moral advantages of "temperance," which are very great. 
This plan has been successfully carried out in several 
parts of our country ; and it is found by experience that 
where the people of a township have persistently refused 
to license shops for the sale of liquors and its consumption 
on the premises, in barrooms, that is to say, crime and 
pauperism have been almost entirely extirpated. 



XXXVI 

OF PARTY GOVERNMENT — THE IMPORTANCE OF THE 

MINORITY 

362. In an ideal state, the people, gifted with unfailing 
discernment of merit, would select continually, and without 
prompting of any kind, the wisest and ablest men for their 
rulers ; and these rulers would devise always the most 
beneficent and the noblest policies for the nation, State, 



128 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

or city. Practically, however, these matters are managed 
somewhat differently. The voters are guided more or less 
by political leaders in whom they have confidence, and by 
appeals to their prejudices. Men are brought into political 
life by careful management of their friends, and of the 
higher chiefs of a party, who are always on the lookout for 
capable men to help them. Platforms are studied over 
and prepared by small coteries of politicians, who aim to 
make them attractive to those citizens by whose votes they 
hope to be elected, and conformable to the policies which 
the party desires to advance. 

363. As men in the actual state differ in judgment as 
to the wisdom of different policies, and as not merely re- 
gard for the general welfare, but prejudices, self-interest, 
and other passions move them, party government arises 
inevitably in a free country, and the voters are called on 
to decide, at elections, what policy, and what men repre- 
senting such policy, shall have the preference. 

364. 7/ is very important to the welfare of a state that 
both the great political parties shall be controlled by wise and 
honest men. A feeble, or divided, or unprincipled minority 
can not offer an effective opposition to even the worst 
attempts of an unscrupulous majority. In reality, such an 
ineffective minority only helps to debase the majority ; 
while a powerful, honest, and intelligent minority forces 
the majority to rule carefully and honestly. A weak, 
divided, and ineffective minority may easily bring serious 
calamities on a country. 

365. The first duty of a minority is to become a majority. 

366. A minority is as likely to be right as a majority ; 
and if it is, and if it persists in asserting its principles, and 
if its leaders are able enough to frame a practical and 
constitutional policy, and to meet their opponents in argu- 



PARTY GOVERNMENT 1 29 

ment before the people, it will, by and by, find itself in 
the majority. 

367. A minority is contemptible and must fail when it 
has neither principles nor policy to oppose to the majority, 
but relies upon abuse of its opponents, or mere criticism of 
the majority's blunders. For, in such a case, unless the 
majority is extraordinarily corrupt or inefficient, the peo- 
ple, seeing no principles at issue, will condone its offenses 
and maintain it in power, out of a conservative spirit, which 
is one of the most valuable qualities in a free people. Nor 
are they wrong in this ; for if the minority have no satis- 
factory policy or principles to offer, their struggle is merely 
one for place or office, with which the people have but 
little sympathy. 

368. In general, inefficiency is more quickly resented 
by the people in their rulers than corruption, unless that 
assumes the dimensions of mere vulgar robbery. Ineffi- 
ciency and corruption usually go together. But the 
strongest appeal of a minority to the American people is 
against injustice. 

369. A strong and able minority is a very important 
part of a legislative body. Its office there is to examine 
and criticise the propositions and acts of the party in 
power ; to scrutinize its expenditures ; to expose its ineffi- 
ciency, its usurpations of power ; to ridicule its blunders ; 
and to oppose all attempts at bad legislation. Where a 
minority is strong in votes, and has able leaders, the first 
effect of its vigilance is to make the party in power more 
careful in administration and legislation, and thus to benefit 
the country ; and its second effect is to rally to its side the 
most independent and ablest members of the majority, and 
thus — if the majority is inefficient or corrupt — to prepare 
the people's minds for a change at the elections. 

NORD. 9 



130 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

370. But, on the other hand, where a legislative minor- 
ity lacks ability and statesmanship, and offers a merely 
factious or trivial opposition, it is very apt to fall into con- 
tempt with the people, and to injure its own prospects of 
political success. 

XXXVII 

OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE 

371. To carry on the necessary business of the various 
governments we have, Federal, State, city, and county, in a 
country like ours, which will soon have a hundred millions 
of people, a large number of officials are required ; and as 
there is a constant tendency to increase the " duties " of 
these governments, and to allow them to interfere more 
and more in the concerns of the people — this, of course, 
tends also to increase the numbers of those employed in 
the public service; the " Taxeaters," as they are often 
called by taxpayers. 

372. The not unnatural, yet vicious, desire of party 
chiefs to strengthen their own power by rewarding their 
adherents with public office, paying them out of the public 
money for party service, of course strengthens the tend- 
ency to increase the number of public offices ; to make a 
government assume new duties makes occasion, as you can 
see, for the employment of more officials. 

373. The race for public employment has become a 
striking and disagreeable phenomenon amongst us. We 
are sometimes accused of being a " nation of office 
seekers." Partly this comes from the general perversion 
of our common school system, which trains the youth of 
our country too exclusively for clerical work, and thus leaves 
them almost helpless, except in one greatly overcrowded 



THE PUBLIC SERVICE 131 

set of vocations, when they come to enter practical life. 
A young man who is master of a good trade is not usually 
an office seeker. Partly also, no doubt, it comes from a 
general feeling that a place in the public service — though 
it does not offer permanence, or a career, and is in general 
poorly paid — yet brings, even in a petty office, honor or 
credit to the occupant, together with easier tasks and sure 
pay. But this propensity to office seeking has been very 
greatly increased by the practice of partisan chiefs prom- 
ising " office " to incite their adherents to " work in the 
campaign " ; and by the custom, which has grown amongst 
us, of turning out of place the incumbents, however ca- 
pable and faithful, and putting in their places, on the 
coming in of a new administration, the party " workers" 
and personal favorites of those assuming power. 

374. The most serious evil resulting from this senseless 
system of " rotation in office" is that it makes our elec- 
tions not a strife for principles and policies, which is their 
true and honorable purpose, but a mere struggle for 
office, in w 7 hich party workers have mainly in view not the 
success of a cause, but the plunder, so to speak, of the 
victory. It is what the party workers are to gain for 
themselves and their adherents and favorites which is in 
question in the election, not the best policy for a great 
nation, State, or city. 

375. While we were a small people, and while our 
various governments, national, State, and city, had but 
few and simple duties, this system of "rotation in office" 
and the open "division of public plunder," were tolerated 
— though you must remember that they had their origin 
long after the foundation of the Federal Government ; and 
the fathers of our system did not reward party service with 
office, and did not think it honorable or patriotic to turn 



132 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

out a competent and honest clerk in office because he was 
of opposite political faith. 

376. But as our territorial area and our population have 
vastly increased, as our various governments more and 
more interfere in the concerns of the people, and as what 
we call civilization makes constantly more complicated our 
social system, to intensify the bitterness of party strife by 
holding out the " plunder of office " as an incitement and 
reward is seen by wise citizens to put a severe and dan- 
gerous strain on our free institutions. Party strife is bitter 
enough in all free states, as history, ancient as well as 
modern, shows, without adding the incitement of a great 
multitude of personal interests and ambitions. A practice 
which may have been considered harmless when we were 
a simply organized community of twenty or twenty-five 
millions, is dangerous to our free and popular government 
when we have become a very highly complicated social 
body of seventy-five or a hundred millions. 

377. There has arisen, therefore, a demand for a reform 
of this growing evil. It is demanded that the men selected 
for the minor places in the public service shall be shown 
to be fit for their duties by a thorough and practical exam- 
ination ; and that the chief executive shall select such 
subordinates only from those who have passed such exami- 
nations. Also that the incumbents of places requiring 
only minor clerical duties shall remain while they perform 
their duties satisfactorily. 

378. A very important benefit, you will easily see, 
would be gained to our country by the permanent estab- 
lishment of this reform. Political leaders, having no 
longer what has been called the " cohesive power of pub- 
lic plunder" to appeal to and count on, would find it 
necessary to move the voters by the presentation of 



THE PUBLIC SERVICE 1 33 

well-considered public policies, and thus we might hope 
by and by to see statesmen, where we now see mainly 
political " bosses." 

379. There are some important reasons why this reform 
can be carried into practice less by laws than by the strong 
force of public opinion, holding it a disgrace and an injury 
to the community in an executive chief to tolerate or sub- 
mit to the "spoils system." 

380. To make and hold the chief executive, be he 
president, governor, or mayor, responsible for the careful 
performance of his duties, it is obviously necessary that he 
shall have the selection of his subordinates and the power 
to dismiss summarily any of them who, in his judgment, 
do not perform their duties satisfactorily. 

381. If he is deprived of this power he is, as you can 
see, at the mercy of his subordinates, and cannot justly be 
held responsible for the honest and effective conduct of 
the public service by the people. Thus, to make the post- 
masters all over the country elective officers, as has been 
proposed, would make them independent of the President, 
who could not remove them summarily for unfaithfulness 
or incompetence. This would at once and greatly demor- 
alize that important public service. So, too, to make the 
subordinates of a governor or mayor elective officers, 
weakens and demoralizes the public service by lessening 
the responsibility, to the people, of the executive head. 
The voters can not usefully, or without injury to the public 
service, be required to elect subordinate executive officers. 

382. But it is no lessening of the proper powers or 
responsibility of a chief executive to require that those 
he wishes to appoint to office under him shall be proved 
to be competent by a preliminary practical examination. 
If he honestly desires to serve the community, and not 



134 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

merely to reward his friends at the public expense, such 
examinations will be a great help to him in making his 
selections. 

XXXVIII 

OF CONFEDERATION AND UNION 

383. You already know from history that our country 
was first settled mainly by English people, who were 
formed into different colonies, subject to the English 
crown. Great Britain eventually acquired nearly all of 
our Atlantic seaboard. 

384. The management of colonies by all the European 
governments was, at that time, conceived in the most nar- 
row and selfish spirit. A colony was held, by the ablest 
statesmen of the eighteenth century, to be rightly treated 
as a dependency whose inhabitants were to enrich only 
the government and people whose flag they served, and 
the nation from which they were derived ; and the people 
of a colony were therefore forbidden to trade with foreign 
nations, and even to manufacture for themselves many 
articles which were produced in the mother country. 

385. The English Navigation Act closed the North 
American ports to all but English ships, forbade any 
but English subjects to engage in foreign trade, and pro- 
hibited the exportation of tobacco, wool, and other prod- 
ucts of the colonies, to any country but England. Also 
the English colonists were forbidden to establish manu- 
factures of several kinds, because it was held that they 
would thus injure the industries of England. 

386. It was this interference with the right to produce 
what they pleased, and to exchange their products freely 
where they could do so most advantageously, which began 



CONFEDERATION AND UNION 1 35 

that alienation from England which ended in the Revolu- 
tionary War and the independence of the colonies. The 
greater part of the wrongs set forth in the Declaration of 
Independence grew out of the efforts of the British govern- 
ment to confine the commerce of the colonies to the mother 
country ; out of the determination of the Americans freely 
to produce what they pleased, and freely to exchange their 
products wherever it was to their advantage to do so. 

387. During the Revolutionary War the thirteen colo- 
nies, which had become States, formed themselves into a 
Confederation ; but, jealous of their separate independ- 
ence, and fearful of a new master, the States, in the Arti- 
cles of Confederation, reserved, each to itself, almost all 
the powers of government. 

388. The government of the Confederation had no 
president or other executive; it had no power over indi- 
viduals, either to tax, to coerce, or to punish them. It 
consisted of a Congress of delegates elected by the State 
legislatures, and upon this Congress were devolved cer- 
tain duties, which, however, it had no power to perform. 
All its determinations were to be carried into effect by the 
States, which, however, it had no power to coerce. 

389. The States, under the Confederation, reserved to 
themselves the power of the purse. The Congress could 
declare the amount of revenue needed to carry on the gen- 
eral government, but the taxes were laid and collected by 
the States according to a general apportionment, and when, 
as sometimes happened, some States did not pay in their 
quota, the Congress had no power to enforce its payment. 
The Congress had authority to declare war, but it could 
not raise a single soldier ; that was reserved to the States. 
The Congress was made an arbitrator between the States, 
but it was powerless to enforce its decisions. Finally, the 



136 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

States, which alone could levy taxes, reserved to themselves 
the regulation of commerce, and the right to tax the ex- 
change of products, not only those coming from abroad, 
but also those which were sent from one State into another ; 
and it was not long before high and vexatious duties were 
exacted for the " encouragement of home industry/' on the 
importation of goods from one State into another, which 
led, naturally, to retaliatory laws, and presently to such ob- 
struction of the exchange of products as caused a general pros- 
tration of all industries in all the States. Production was 
discouraged, because markets were limited ; at every State 
boundary customhouse officers stood to exact tribute of the 
man who had something to exchange ; and as the profitable- 
ness of industry depends on the right to exchange ', and is di- 
minished by every check placed upon the freedom of 'exchange \ 
and by every limitation of the area over which a product may 
be exchanged, production was fatally hampered, and the 
whole country fell into poverty. 

390. The first movement toward our present form of gov- 
ernment arose out of a convention called to remove some 
unendurably vexatious fetters upon the exchange of prod- 
ucts. Commissioners were appointed by the legislatures 
of Maryland and Virginia to make freer to the people of 
those States the navigation of the rivers Potomac and 
Roanoke, and the Chesapeake Bay. They were unable to 
act effectively ; and at their instance the legislature of 
Virginia, in 1786, proposed a convention of commissioners 
from all the States, " to take into consideration the state of 
trade, and the propriety of a uniform system of commercial 
relations." These commissioners advised a convention to 
revise the Articles of Confederation, and it was this body 
which in 1787 framed our present Constitution. 

391. Once more you see the extreme importance oifree- 



CONFEDERATION AND UNION 1 37 

dom of exchange to the prosperity of industry. Our Con- 
stitution grew out of the necessity of freeing the exchange 
of products from the fetters imposed upon it by the States ; 
and accordingly those who framed it took care to secure in 
an effectual manner this great object. 

392. The Federal Constitution differed in but two fun- 
damental particulars from the Articles of Confederation 
which it superseded. It gave the central government, 
within its properly limited sphere, direct power over indi- 
viduals ; and by its limitation of the powers of the State 
governments, and its definition of the powers of the Fed- 
eral Government (sections 8, 9, and 10 of Article I.), it 
established and has maintained entire freedom for the mi- 
gration of citizens and the exchange of products between the 
States. No citizen needs a passport, to pass from one of otir 
States into another ; and no State customhouses bar the way 
of commerce — or impede the free interchange of products — 
between the States. 

393. The adoption of the Constitution, by freeing the 
exchange of products among the States, at once revived 
industry, by vastly enlarging the market for all products. 
When men could sell over an immensely enlarged area, 
without obstruction, what they had raised and produced, 
every energy was stimulated which before was crushed, and 
we began thus, by the removal of obstructions to exchange, 
that career of prosperity and growth which has been the 
wonder of the world. 

394. The union of the States under a central or Federal 
Government has thus been the direct cause of all our long 
and remarkable career of prosperity, and this because, first, 
it has secured to our people, within their constantly increas- 
ing area, unrestricted freedom of exchange, which has acted 
as a constant stimulant to their enterprise, ingenuity, and 



138 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

industry. It has set a prize on intelligence by securing its 
products an immense market, covering nearly half of the 
continent, and that the richest part. Second, the Consti- 
tution assured homogeneous laws and free intercommuni- 
cation over the whole of our territory, and thus made 
migration possible and safe, whereby new fields of activity 
have been constantly opened to the thrifty poor and to the 
restless and adventurous of our population. 

395. Finally, the self-government in local affairs reserved 
to the States has enabled these to experiment safely, and to 
make changes in the State constitutions, not always for the 
best, but often needed improvements, and thus, by compar- 
ing results, gradually and safely to improve our system of 
government. 

XXXIX 

THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM 

396. Appended to this volume you will find the Federal 
Constitution, which I advise you to read with care. 

397. You will discover that this instrument creates a 
government of limited powers, but of unlimited authority 
within its province. For instance, the President of the 
United States can not appoint any State officer, nor issue 
a command to him — not even to a justice of the peace or 
a constable in a township ; but Congress may order the 
President to draft or compel half a million of citizens into 
the army in case of war. Congress may declare war, and 
raise armies and levy taxes to carry it on ; it may declare 
who are citizens, how much gold shall go to a dollar, and 
how many pounds of wheat to a bushel; but it can not 
enact or repeal a city charter, nor interfere in the acts of 
even a township's trustees. 



THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM 1 39 

398. This limitation and division of powers we call de- 
centralization. You have read of it in Section VIII. ; and 
its practical application is one of the most important and 
beneficial features of our political system. 

399. Under it, you must remember, the Federal Govern- 
ment has absolute command and power over every citizen 
and his property, for certain purposes and in certain rela- 
tions; and this is necessary to give it efficiency. But it is 
absolutely without power over the citizens in other relations, 
and this is necessary to secure our liberties, and to give 
elasticity to our political system ; which means to make 
change possible without revolution. 

400. The people of the United States are a nation ; the 
Federal Government is a national government in the truest 
and largest sense of the word ; and the Constitution em- 
powers it to do all that any nation can require of its gov- 
ernment, and to act in the most direct and decisive manner 
upon the individual citizen. 

401. The Federal Government has the exclusive charge 
of our intercourse, as a nation, with other nations ; and it 
alone can make treaties. If you travel abroad, your citi- 
zenship is declared by a Federal passport ; your rights are 
defended by the Federal Government ; you are known as 
a citizen, not of New Jersey or California, but of the 
United States ; the flag of your country is the Federal 
flag ; and foreign governments have not even any official 
knowledge of the existence of our States. 

402. The Federal Government has the exclusive au- 
thority to make treaties, to declare war and peace, to raise 
armies and maintain a navy ; and though the militia in 
time of peace are trained by the States, this must be ac- 
cording to rules adopted by the Federal Congress. It has 
the entire charge of the common defense against attack 



I40 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

from other nations, and has the power to defend its own 
existence against insurrection, and make its own laws 
obeyed by all the citizens — all State constitutions and 
laws to the contrary notwithstanding. It is empowered to 
raise revenue by internal as well as external taxes, and, if 
necessary, to borrow money. Its tax collectors and other 
officers proceed directly against the individual citizen, and 
in its own courts. It has the authority to establish and 
maintain post offices, to coin money and punish counter- 
feiters ; to fix weights and measures, to regulate commerce, 
to take cognizance of offenses committed at sea, in the 
Territories, and against the laws of nations ; to declare 
who shall be citizens, and to grant patents and copyrights. 
And all laws enacted by Congress, for these and other pur- 
poses recited in the Constitution, are the supreme law of 
the land, and as such entitled to your faithful obedience, 
even though a State constitution or laws should command 
you to the contrary. For an act of Congress, a decision 
of the United States Supreme Court, or a command of the 
President when this is in accordance with an act of Congress, 
is above any or all State laws and constitutions. The States 
are so completely prohibited from interfering with the 
Federal Government in its own field, as this is prescribed 
in the Constitution, that they can not even tax Federal 
bonds ; and the Federal power is so supreme, within its 
limits, that it may punish even the obstruction of one of 
its mail wagons. 

403. It may be well to explain to you here, also, that 
when a citizen disobeys a Federal law he is directly dealt 
with — arrested, tried, and punished — by Federal officers 
and courts. In case of insurrection or rebellion, the 
Federal authority acts against individuals, not against 
States ; and if a State adopts a law contrary to the 



THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM 141 

Federal Constitution the citizen who is called on to obey 
it may appeal to the Federal Supreme Court, whose 
decision in the case is final. 

404. In all that concerns us as a nation, either in our 
external or internal interests, the Federal Government is 
thus supreme. But in a great many important relations it 
has nothing to do with us ; and these are left as entirely 
to the State governments, and to the county and city govern- 
ments, as the other and general interests are given to the 
Federal Government. In fact, great and apparently over- 
shadowing as is the power of our central government, it 
is scarcely felt by the individual citizen, except when we 
have a war, which involves the raising of armies and a 
navy, and heavy taxation, or when we are cursed w r ith a 
heavy debt, or serious internal disorders. In the first half- 
century of our existence as a nation there were millions of 
Americans who hardly knew that there was a Federal 
Government, except when they voted for a President or a 
member of Congress. The Federal revenues were then 
collected entirely at a few customhouses ; the only tax- 
gatherer seen by the mass of citizens was a State officer ; 
and the only evidences of the Federal power's activity 
which then came under the notice of the multitude of citi- 
zens were in the benefits they received from post offices, 
lighthouses, and the survey of wild lands. 

405. A State government is bound to maintain peace 
and order within its limits, and thus to make its own laws 
respected : it is the governor of a State who, through the 
sheriff, his local peace officer, and by help of the State 
militia if necessary, puts down local riots and disturbances. 
But observe that if such riot becomes too formidable for 
the forces at his command to contend with, the State 
legislature (or the governor himself, if the legislature 



142 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

cannot be convened) is authorized by the Federal Consti- 
tution to call upon the President for help. 

406. And observe still further, what is very important 
for you to bear in mind, that if such riotous disturbance 
interrupts the functions of the Federal Government, as its 
duty to carry the mail, or to preserve its property, or col- 
lect its taxes, in that case the Federal Government, under 
the Constitution, is bound to step in and by its officials, 
and its soldiers if need be, summarily put down the law- 
breakers and restore peace and order. General Washing- 
ton understood this distinction perfectly, in the case of the 
11 Whisky Insurrection," so called, in the early days of our 
government. 

407. The State government has the duty to punish 
crimes, except those committed against the United States 
or against the laws of nations ; to appoint the police and 
maintain the prisons ; to regulate the rules of inherit- 
ance. It has charge of education and the public health ; 
it creates and regulates all corporations, such as railroad 
and insurance companies, within its limits ; it declares 
who of its inhabitants shall vote ; it may regulate the sale 
of liquors and poisons, and abolish nuisances. In all these 
matters, and others of the same kind, the State has juris- 
diction and power, to the exclusion of the Federal Govern- 
ment ; and the governor, the State courts, and the State 
legislature have abundant power to perform all their duties. 

408. Within the State there are a number of political 
subdivisions : the county, township, and school district, and 
the city and ward ; all these are created and may be 
changed by the State legislature, and to each a part of the 
work of government is assigned by the State constitution 
and laws, and in accordance with custom, which varies 
somewhat in different States. A city ward is the equiva- 



RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF AN AMERICAN CITIZEN 1 43 

lent of a township ; but cities are with us governed by a 
charter granted by the State legislature, while county gov- 
ernments are usually prescribed in a State constitution. 
There is no reason for this difference ; and the practice 
of granting special charters to cities has been the cause 
of much mischievous legislation, and of widespread cor- 
ruption. A city government needs to be somewhat 
differently constituted from that of a county ; but there is 
no reason why all the cities of a State should not exist 
under a single charter, carefully drawn. 



XL 
OF THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF AN AMERICAN CITIZEN 

409. In all the constitutions, Federal and State, the 
people have reserved to themselves certain rights and 
immunities which none of their governments are allowed 
to interfere with ; and it is important that you should 
understand these. 

410. As an American citizen, you are a free man; and 
no one has a right to enslave your person, except for crime, 
of which you must first be convicted upon a fair trial in 
open court, or to take from you your property, except by 
due process of law. 

411. You have a right to believe what you please; to 
worship God as you please ; to express your opinions on 
all subjects freely : but you may be punished for libelous 
attacks on others, and for incitement to riotous and violent 
conduct, in violation of or resistance to law, in which last 
case it is as a rioter that you make yourself amenable to 
punishment. You may print what you please, with the 
same restrictions ; and you have the right to assemble 



144 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

with whom you please, in an orderly manner, and to 
petition the State or Federal Government for redress of 
grievances. 

412. You may be arrested only for cause mentioned in 
a proper and legal warrant, served by an authorized officer 
of the law, who must show you his authority. 

413. You have a right to be released on bail, unless 
charged with a capital crime ; and to be produced before 
the nearest court, on a writ of habeas corpus, in order that 
that court shall decide whether your arrest and confinement 
were properly made, and for sufficiently probable cause. 

414. You have a right to a speedy trial by jury, to be 
confronted with the witnesses against you, to engage a 

• competent person for your defense, and to know at once 
and definitely, when you are arrested, what you are 
charged with. 

415. You have a right to appeal to the proper court for 
protection to your person and property ; and if the con- 

«' stituted authorities fail to protect you, you have a right 
to damages for their neglect. 

416. You have a right to be secure in your house 
against searches by officers of the law, except on proper 
warrant, which must first be shown you, and for sufficient 
cause. 

417. You have a right to keep and bear arms, but not, 
1 in most of our States, to carry them concealed upon your 

person. 

418. You have a right to sue for damages any officer of 
the law who arrests or tries you in an unlawful manner. 

419. These are the sacred and inalienable rights of every 
American citizen. They make him secure against unjust 
or usurping rulers, and against unscrupulous attacks from 
a fellow-citizen. They enable the citizen to be safe against 



RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF AN AMERICAN CITIZEN 145 

injustice, or to obtain, by summary or immediate methods, 
redress against unjust attacks. They are possessed by all 
the people — women and children as well as men. 

420. These are inestimable blessings to those who en- 
joy them. Many nations calling themselves civilized have 
them not. 

421. It is your highest duty as an American citizen to 
obey the laws, even if they are, in your belief, unjust or un- 
wise. General Grant once shrewdly said that the best 
way to procure the repeal of an unjust or unwise law was 
rigorously to enforce it. It is your right to expose the 
folly or injustice of a law, to demand its repeal, and to try 
to get a majority to repeal it. But while it remains a law, 
you, are to obey it. 

422. Under a free government such as ours, resistance 
to law is inexcusable in the citizens ; because the people 
themselves cause the laws to be made ; the constitution 
limits the powers of the majority and thus prevents its 
tyranny ; the courts are open for redress of grievances ; 
and by patient argument and exposure, before the people, 
the repeal of bad or unjust laws can with certainty be 
effected. 

423. But further, it is your important duty as an Ameri- 
can citizen to watch the conduct of public officers, the 
highest as well as the lowest, to see that they not only 
perform their duties, but also observe their constitutional 
limitations. And if they fail in this, then it is your duty 
to help to expose their misconduct, to arouse the general 
public opinion against them, and cause their punishment 
at the elections. This you are bound to do, whether such 
officers belong to your own party or to the other. For it is 
only by such constant vigilance in the individual citizens that 
a free nation can hope to preserve its liberties unimpaired. 

NORD. — IO 



146 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

XLI 
OF CITY GOVERNMENTS 

424. To secure a proper, that is to say, an honest or 
effective, government for great cities, is a problem enga- 
ging the attention of good citizens, not only in this country, 
but in several others. The rapid growth of these enor- 
mous aggregations of people is a phenomenon still of no 
long standing; the problem of effective city government 
under greatly and rapidly changed conditions is still new. 
It begins to be clearly seen, only of late, that the old sys- 
tem, still in the main retained, by which the city affairs are 
managed on the theory that it is a political corporation, 
like a State in the Federal Union, will no longer answer, 
because it is not true. 

425. A modern city, with its thousands or millions of 
people closely crowded together in a narrow space, is really 
not a political but a business corporation. You will see this 
if you reflect that the duties of the heads of the city cor- 
poration have no relation to our State or Federal political 
movements or changes, but solely to the health, security, 
and comfort of the members of the corporation, the mass 
of the inhabitants of the city, namely. The citizens of a 
city rightly influence by their votes at State or Federal 
elections the policy to be pursued in the State or country 
at large, but you can see that the exercise of this function 
can not usefully be allowed to affect the business character 
and operations of the city government ; and that where, as 
is now the practice, these two are mixed together, confu- 
sion and mismanagement are sure to ensue. 

426. The true and proper functions of the heads of a city 
corporation concent not party politics, but business. They 
have to control : — 



CITY GOVERNMENTS 1 47 

i. The police and police courts, to keep public order 
and prevent and punish crime. 

2. The streets, which must be paved and kept clean and 
clear ; and of course the street railroads — so that move- 
ment shall be unobstructed and comfortable. 

3. The charities, which means the relief of the destitute 
and helpless. 

4. The water supply — on a great scale. 

5. Lighting — by gas or electricity, also on a great 
scale. 

6. Schools. 

7. The preservation of the general health by sanitary 
regulations. 

8. An effective fire department to prevent sudden and 
disastrous losses where houses are so closely crowded 
together. 

9. Sewers, to carry off safely the refuse of thousands or 
millions of people. 

10. Parks or public recreation grounds. 

11. Wharves, piers, and bridges. 

427. These, you will observe, are purely business mat- 
ters. They have no relation to party politics or to the 
management of State or Federal affairs. Summed up, 
they relate entirely to the security, health, and comfort of the 
members of the corporation, the inhabitants of the city ; and 
remember that these business matters must be attended to, 
no matter what other and different questions may be agita- 
ting the public mind, regarding the control or management 
of the State or Federal Government. 

428. Think of some other great business corporation, 
a railroad or a manufacturing corporation ; you would hold 
it absurd and only leading to bankruptcy if, in one of 
these, the stockholders should be required to vote for their 



I48 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

board of directors on partisan political grounds as Repub- 
licans or Democrats. Of course they would refuse to do 
so, and on the plain ground that the affair they are inter- 
ested in has no relation to "politics" or political parties; 
what they want in their separate relation as members of 
such a corporation is skillful and economical management 
to produce dividends — and into that they would justly say 
party political questions do not enter at all. 

429. Now, the " dividends" of the inhabitants of a 
great city are an effective police, clean and well-paved 
streets, due care for the public health, and so on. And 
the constitution and by-laws of this great corporation 
ought to be so framed that the heads of the corporation 
should be made to look after these varied business inter- 
ests. It should be made possible to select them for their 
skill and integrity ; but, above all else, not because of 
their relation to partisan politics. 

430. This is the aim toward which, more or less blindly 
and clumsily, thoughtful citizens are working, in this ques- 
tion how to manage well those huge business corporations 
which we call cities. How, precisely, they are to be 
changed from political to business corporations no one can 
foretell; because no one can tell you how long the mil- 
lions of people in New York, for instance, will endure to 
be made uncomfortable at a needlessly heavy cost — how 
long before they will see that, poor and rich alike, they 
get, while the city remains a political instead of a business 
corporation, very little for their money. 

431. All reforms come about slowly in a free country — 
but they come ; nor must you forget that in this case many 
difficult questions embarrass a true and businesslike settle- 
ment. For instance, our cities generally own their water 
supply ; the question is now often asked why they should 



CITY GOVERNMENTS 1 49 

not also own their gas and electric lighting works, their 
street railroads, all their "public conveniences," as they 
are called. 

432. To this important question there is for you a con- 
clusive answer. If a city is made definitely a business 
corporation, it may safely and successfully own these and 
other " public conveniences," and the proof that it may is 
in the fact that in some European cities and in some of 
the smaller cities of this country it is already successfully 
done. But while our great cities continue, as at present, 
political corporations, you will see, I think, that such 
" municipal ownership " would only increase inefficiency 
and waste. Partisan political management cannot be use- 
fully applied in business corporations. 

433. When this important and decisive change is brought 
about, as it will be, because the wish for it is strong in 
many able and influential men, the government of a great 
city on business principles will offer an honorable career 
to its ablest citizens. To be the business head of so great 
a corporation will be a worthy ambition for the greatest 
men. For able men like real power, and joyfully accept 
great and real responsibilities. They have a strong sense 
of duty. 

434. Under our present system of partisan political gov- 
ernment in cities you may notice that able men do not 
aspire to the mayoralty. Even the ablest and most power- 
ful city politicians, the "bosses" as they are called, care- 
fully avoid that really great place. It has sometimes 
occurred to citizens that "the boss" might be made 
mayor. But " the boss " is never of that mind. " Boss 
Tweed," as he was everywhere called, could in his time 
have been mayor, but he was careful not to suffer that — 
he put a dummy in that place. 



150 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

435. I wish you to bear in mind that any system of 
government which does not easily bring the brains to the 
top is bad. You can see that even a political "boss " could 
not, if he were mayor of a great city, tolerate its misgov- 
ernment ; because if he did he would be held responsible, 
and he knows that in that case his fortunes and ambitions 
would go to the ground, and he would be ruined. 



XLII 

OF TRIAL BY JURY 

436. When a crime or an offense has been committed 
and the police officers have arrested the person suspected 
of it, the prosecuting officer collects the evidence against 
him, and upon the meeting of the grand jury lays it before 
them in the form of an indictment. They investigate the 
charge, call witnesses before them if they wish, and if 
they have reason to believe guilt probable, they return the 
indictment with the indorsement, "A true bill." If they 
believe that the charges are not sustained, they make 
return " Not a true bill," whereupon the person is released ; 
but he may be rearrested if, subsequently, new evidence is 
found against him. 

437. The grand jury is a body of responsible citizens, 
usually twenty-three in number, selected under the eye of 
the court. We have, of course, grand juries for the Fed- 
eral as well as for the State courts. Their authority to in- 
vestigate crimes and offenses is not limited to cases laid 
before them by the prosecuting officer; they may make 
independent investigations, and if they find guilt or blame, 
may make what is called a presentment, which may there- 
upon be followed by an indictment, and this by trial. Upon 



TRIAL BY JURY 151 

the meeting of the grand jury, it is usual for the court to 
instruct them in their duties, and it may also direct their 
especial attention to notorious offenses. All their pro- 
ceedings are secret, and the oath the grand jurors take 
makes secrecy a duty. 

438. One object of a grand jury is to prevent injustice. 
If the prosecuting attorney were alone empowered to 
bring offenders to trial, he might either misuse this power 
for purposes of revenge, and thus annoy and disgrace 
innocent persons ; or he might be bribed to withhold an 
indictment, and thus favor the escape from justice of 
wealthy or influential criminals. The powers of the grand 
jury are a check upon him ; and their number, and the 
care usually taken to select only responsible and well- 
known citizens, make the corruption of a grand jury 
improbable. The grand jury has power to compel the 
attendance of witnesses. 

439. When a person charged with a crime or an offense 
is brought to trial, it is before a petit jury. The judge is 
not allowed to decide upon the guilt or innocence of the 
prisoner — for he might be prejudiced, or unduly influ- 
enced ; twelve men, chosen from a numerous list of citi- 
zens, are appointed to hear the evidence, and to declare 
upon the question of guilt. In selecting a jury, the ac- 
cused, and the plaintiff or the prosecuting attorney, have 
a right to " challenge" or object to a certain number per- 
emptorily, or without giving reasons, and they may object 
to others if they can show that these are prejudiced. The 
judge attends to the pleadings of the lawyers; takes care 
that witnesses are properly sworn and examined ; and, in 
his summing up to the jury, points out to them if the 
counsel on either side have made unsupported assertions, 
instructs the jury in their duty, and endeavors to clear the 



152 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

case of all extraneous matter ; his charge is of course with- 
out bias or favor. Thereupon the jury retire to deliberate ; 
and if they can unanimously agree, their foreman announces 
the verdict. The judge then delivers the sentence, as pro- 
vided by the law. Trial by jury is important because it 
is justly held to be a preventive of tyrannical courses by 
judges, who might be influenced or intimidated. The ac- 
cused has a right to be tried by a "jury of the vicinage" 
which means by twelve men who are supposed to be his 
neighbors, subject more or less to the same customs and 
habits, and bringing into their judgment of the case a 
knowledge of these, which is important to the accused. 
To send a man charged with a crime or offense to another 
country or region, where his offense might be judged from 
a standpoint different from that of his " vicinage," and 
without knowledge of local habits and customs, or with, as 
might happen, a special dislike of these, would be, as you 
can readily see, an injustice. 

440. In some countries the jury need not be unanimous, 
a certain part of the twelve, if they agree, making the 
verdict ; and there are those who believe that this practice 
could be advantageously introduced in our States. 

441. The jury system is not perfect; it needs to be 
guarded against abuses. But you can see that it is highly 
important for the cause of justice and public order and 
morality, that both the grand and petit juries shall be com- 
posed of intelligent and upright citizens ; otherwise crime 
may go unpunished, and society suffer in a way not easily 
reparable. Bear in mind, therefore, that to serve on a jury 
is one of the most important duties of an American citizen 
— a duty which he can not avoid without wronging the 
community of which he is a part. 



TERRITORIES AND COLONIES I 53 

XLIII 

OF TERRITORIES AND COLONIES 

442. A Territory is an incomplete State, a piece of 
country still so sparsely inhabited that it is not in a social 
or political condition to become a State of the Union. 

443. It is organized politically by permission of Con- 
gress ; its governor and other executive officers and its 
judges are appointed by the President ; it has a legislature 
which enacts laws of local application, but Congress has 
power to reject any of these acts. The inhabitants elect 
a delegate who represents them in Congress, but who has 
no vote. His duty is to tell the House in which he sits the 
wants of his constituents. When the people of a Territory 
desire to form themselves into a State, they may be allowed 
by Congress to frame and adopt a Constitution. This they 
present to Congress, for its scrutiny and approval ; and 
Congress may in its discretion reject the instrument, and 
thus refuse to create the State ; and from this decision 
there is no appeal, except to another Congress. The peo- 
ple of a Territory do not vote for President. 

444. It was held by the earlier American statesmen 
that our possession of a vast area of unsettled land was, 
and as they believed would continue to be, one of the most 
important helps to the perpetuity of our institutions, and 
of free and lawful government amongst us. They knew 
from history that with a dense population come in slowly 
but inevitably great differences in wealth, a separation of 
the people into classes, the increase of poverty and indi- 
gence among the mass; consequently a lessened independ- 
ence and intelligence among the poorer citizens, and the 
decay of that public spirit among all on which the continu- 



154 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

ance of a free government so vitally depends. They feared 
that the increase of these evils would threaten in the end 
the stability of our free institutions. They saw that the 
abundance of unsettled or wild land, open to the free 
occupation of our citizens, would leave open for many years 
— for centuries, indeed, as they hoped — a broad field for 
the exertions of the more adventurous, enterprising, and 
restless part of our people ; offering these opportunity to 
exchange dependence and subordination in the densely 
populated States for hardy independence in our vast, 
sparsely settled areas. 

445. You can see that a laborer in a thickly popu- 
lated European state, to whom the conditions of his life 
have become hateful, has no resource except migration to 
a distant and strange country. American statesmen rightly 
believed it an inestimable good fortune for our own people 
that such men in our country, in seeking to better their 
condition, would betake themselves, not to a foreign coun- 
try, but to their own public lands, under the protection of 
their own flag and laws. There, by their strong arms and 
vigorous spirit, and needing no more capital than any in- 
dustrious and economical laboring man in the East could 
save out of his earnings, they could achieve at least inde- 
pendence for themselves, and for their children more than 
that. 

446. You can see that this was a wise and far-reaching 
thought ; and our history tells you that this earlier policy, 
unwritten, but not the less strongly adhered to, was carried 
out during many years, by the absorption of vast conti- 
nental areas not included in the original States. Thus 
we acquired Florida ; we bought under the name of 
Louisiana a far greater area than is included in the pres- 
ent State of that name ; we admitted Texas to the Union ; 



TERRITORIES AND COLONIES 155 

we took possession of California and absorbed the vast 
country north of it to the British line ; at the close of the 
Mexican War we secured the great region called New 
Mexico ; and later we bought Alaska from the Russians. 
So that in the course of years nearly half of North America, 
with the most fertile soil and the best climatic conditions, 
was brought under our flag and rule. 

447. You may observe these peculiarities about all these 
acquisitions, that they were of co7itinental lands, and 
lands almost bare of population, and therefore freely open 
to the settlement of our own people. 

448. Not only did wise and patriotic men thus greatly 
extend our original area, but they took care that those who 
wished to settle in these regions should be able to acquire 
land very cheaply; 160 acres free to every citizen, except 
the insignificant charges for registering his claim and for 
proving his occupation of the land. They took care also 
to set apart from the public domain a liberal share dedi- 
cated to the support of free schools, so that education 
should be within the reach of the settlers' children. 

449. Unfortunately a later generation permitted a con- 
siderable part of our public domain to be made over to 
corporations, as an incentive and reward for constructing 
railroads through the wilderness. But we have still a 
great area of public lands open to free settlement ; and the 
land grants to corporations are sold by them in most cases 
at cheap rates. We have thus still a great space open to 
the restless and enterprising of our people, where our laws, 
and what is of equal or even greater importance, our cus- 
toms, habits, and political system, easily and naturally 
become dominant, so that out of Territories we can safely 
make States of the Union. 

450. Of late a new policy has been introduced, of an- 



I56 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

nexing outlying ^//-continental areas, as Hawaii, Puerto 
Rico, the Philippine Islands, and perhaps also Cuba. Here 
we take not unsettled continental lands, but distant and 
extra-continental islands, having already a more or less 
dense population, of mixed races, glaringly unfitted by 
habits and customs to become our fellow-citizens. These 
islands also offer very narrow, if any, regions open to such 
free settlement as our own people have been accustomed to. 

451. It is plain, therefore, that these new acquisitions 
do not fall under the same category with those before men- 
tioned ; and that for the security of our own institutions 
they require a different treatment. 

452. That, with proper and wise methods, we can rule 
these dependencies greatly to the benefit of their people, 
by enforcing upon them by our power and vigor peace and 
lawful order, justice and security for life and property, no 
American doubts. 

453. But you can see that, while we owe this to them, 
our first duty is to ourselves. They can not be made a part 
of our continental political system without perverting and 
endangering that. They are already largely occupied by 
races and populations unfitted in various ways to become 
a part of us as American citizens ; and offer no such ad- 
vantages, of free and unoccupied lands for the settlement 
of our own people, as our other and continental accretions 
of territory have given and continue to give us. We are 
bound, therefore, for our own security, to administer them 
not as Territories in due time to become States of the 
Union, but as what they are, outlying colonial possessions, 
whose people should be excluded entirely from any share in 
our home government ; neither voting in our home elections 
nor capable of holding any office, congressional, executive, 
or judicial, within the United States. 



WHEN WE NUMBER ONE HUNDRED MILLIONS 1 57 

XLIV 
WHEN WE NUMBER ONE HUNDRED MILLIONS 

454. The larger the machine, the more important is it 
that it shall be built upon sound principles of mechanics, 
and that it shall be carefully managed in accordance with 
the laws of its construction ; for a break in a machine 
which weighs a hundred tons and moves at a great speed 
in all its parts is more disastrous than one in a hand 
machine whose momentum is insignificant, even if its 
speed of revolution should be considerable. What is true 
of a piece of machinery in this respect is equally true of a 
state or nation. The more populous it is, and the more ex- 
tended its area, the more unwieldy it becomes, the more 
disturbing is every friction of the parts, and the more 
vdtal it is that its managers or rulers shall be made to 
adhere closely to the principles on which its government 
is constructed. 

455. The fundamental and most vital principle under- 
lying our political system is that called Decentraliza- 
tion, by which the duties imposed by the people upon 
their rulers are divided among several distinct govern- 
ments, each acting independently in its sphere, but all 
subordinate to one general or organic law, called with us 
the Federal Constitution ; and all so arranged as to work 
harmoniously to a common purpose. 

456. You have seen, in other sections, how this division 
of powers is regulated in our political system ; and I 
have explained to you that it has clearly defined objects ; 
namely, to leave as much as possible to the private enter- 
prise and ingenuity of the people ; to leave to them also, in 
the smaller political subdivisions, the direct management 



158 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

of their minor or local affairs, and thus to train them in 
independence, self-government, and public spirit ; secondly, 
to enable the people easily to control and change their 
rulers at regular elections, and to do this in one locality 
without necessarily disturbing the whole country ; thirdly, 
to give the people, in their different subordinate govern- 
ments, strongholds against possible usurpation of power 
by the Federal rulers, and in the Federal Government 
security for peace, order, and free exchange and inter- 
communication in all the parts ; fourthly, to relieve the 
central or Federal Government of a multitude of details, 
the control of which would make it cumbrous, inefficient, 
and tyrannical, and would dangerously increase the pat- 
ronage of the Federal rulers, and their power to corrupt 
the people ; and, finally, to enable the people of different 
States, counties, and even townships to determine, each 
locality for itself, upon local regulations and laws suited to 
their habits and customs — all of which laws, however, are 
to be in conformity with the Federal Constitution and the 
laws of Congress. 

457. Thus we secure uniformity in the general system, 
with independence, variety, and elasticity in details ; the 
least interference with personal liberty, combined with 
security to person and property. 

458. We Americans enjoy the most perfect government 
in the world; and we owe to it almost all the blessings 
which make our lives exceptionally happy. Peace, liberty 
to a degree unknown to the subjects of European powers, 
free opportunity for the exercise of all our faculties, knowl- 
edge and intelligence within the reach of the humblest cit- 
izen, security against injustice, stability of order — these 
and other blessings we owe, not to the rulers we choose, 
but to the form of government under which we live, which 



WHEN WE NUMBER ONE HUNDRED MILLIONS 1 59 

is as beneficent in what it leaves undone as in what it 
does. 

459. But in all earthly contrivances there is a tendency 
to change ; and it has been noticed that as we increase in 
population there is an increasing propensity to impose 
more upon the Federal Government, and to take from the 
powers of the local governments. This all wise citizens 
ought to oppose, for as we increase in population it is 
necessary that we shall even add to the number of objects 
over which the people shall determine and rule in their 
local governments, for thus only can their political training 
be continued. 

460. It is in this direction that wise citizens will strive 
to guard against future dangers. The inconveniences, the 
temporary maladministration, and above all the apparent 
carelessness with which the people condone blunders in 
their public servants need not give you occasion for 
gloomy forebodings. Our people are naturally inatten- 
tive to minor details in their governments. They forgive 
much to their rulers, if only they are convinced that these 
have an honest desire to serve the public. They are slow 
to lose their faith in old public servants, and especially in 
a political party which has once secured their confidence 
by conspicuous good service. 

461. This quality, which is often vexatious, and some- 
times causes thoughtful men to despair, is in fact a most 
valuable trait in any people ; for it secures what is of the 
very greatest importance in public affairs — stability. 
That people is happiest and most likely to maintain its 
liberties, and to be prosperous, which by natural tempera- 
ment dislikes change, and can be moved to it only upon 
important occasions, and for clearly and even pressingly 
necessary objects. Stability of laws, stability in industry 



l6o POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

and business, stability of character and of purpose in the in- 
dividual, are all of far greater importance than the most 
brilliant experiments in government, or the most seductive 
and adventurous enterprises. 

462. But, finally, bear in mind that nothing is stable 
except justice. Unjust and unequal laws are liable to 
perpetual change. 

XLV 

RULES FOR THE CONDUCT OF DELIBERATIVE 
ASSEMBLIES 

463. When you come to act with others in a public 
meeting of any kind, whether it is a college debating club, 
a town, church, or business meeting, or a legislative body, 
you will discover the extreme importance of orderly and 
systematic proceedings. A numerous assembly of men 
gathered for consultation or action of any kind very easily 
falls into disorder, and even slight disturbances or irregu- 
larities cause a great waste of time and temper. Thus a 
petty obstruction in the line of march of an army, which 
to two or three persons would be hardly noticeable, might 
yet, if the army contained ten thousand men, each of 
whom would have to leap over it, delay the rear several 
hours. 

464. Moreover, wherever men are gathered in delibera- 
tive assemblies, there will be some of hasty tempers, some 
more eager, less logical, or more peremptory than others ; 
and to preserve the rights of all it is absolutely necessary 
that each member shall be able to appeal to some gener- 
ally recognized rules of procedure, and that all shall submit 
to these rules. 

465. To avoid disorder and maintain the rights of each, 



RULES FOR DELIBERATIVE ASSEMBLIES l6l 

English-speaking people have in the course of time per- 
fected rules for the conduct of public business, which 
apply as well to a debating club as to our Houses of Con- 
gress. These general rules are founded on common sense, 
and have for their main objects the easy preservation of 
order and fair play to all, and the protection of the 
minority in such bodies. 

466. When the French legislative body falls into an 
uproar and confusion too great for its presiding officer to 
control, he puts on his hat, and by that act concludes the 
session. His only way to restore order is to stop the pro- 
ceedings entirely. But in the British House of Commons, 
or in the American Congress, long-established and univer- 
sally respected rules, to violate which would be a very 
grave offense, prevent the necessity of such a time-wast- 
ing expedient. 

467. The great body of the rules, as well as the prece- 
dents on which they rest, are contained in various books 
with which Congress and the State legislatures are fa- 
miliar, and to which constant reference is made in these 
bodies. But it is not necessary to the proper conduct 
of a debating or college society, or of a town or church 
meeting, that its members should be conversant with the 
whole body of Parliamentary law. A knowledge of the 
elementary rules which should govern proceedings in all 
deliberative assemblies is very useful to every American ; 
and these, accordingly, I will endeavor to arrange in a 
clear and intelligible manner for your use in the following 
pages. Acquaintance with these elementary rules may 
enable you, on occasion, to save the time of a public meet- 
ing, help to maintain order and dispatch business in it, 
and preserve your own temper. 

468. I desire, first of all, to impress upon you the abso- 



1 62 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

lute necessity of conducting all such bodies with dignity 
and order. Not unfrequently young people meeting in a 
debating club or other such society fancy the object of 
their convocation too unimportant to make dignified con- 
duct necessary. This is a mistake. No business whatever 
can be well conducted, nor can any society or assembly 
prosper, unless there is decorum, self-restraint, and such 
respect shown to the object of the meeting and to the per- 
sons assembled as will lend dignity, and even a little so- 
lemnity, to the proceedings. I have seen, once in my life, 
a State legislative body in which the Speaker was careless 
on these points, and weakly allowed members to enter with 
hats on their heads, to smoke during the session, to inter- 
rupt him and other members, and to indulge in trivial and 
disrespectful language ; and I noticed that this body did 
not respect itself : the disorderly conduct permitted to its 
members made the body contemptible to itself, and affected 
very seriously its usefulness to the people. Hence, no 
matter how unimportant the object of a public meeting 
may be, if you are one of its members, it is your duty to 
enter quietly, and with uncovered head ; to sit in your 
seat attentively listening to the proceedings ; to address 
yourself, if you speak, to the presiding officer only ; to 
refrain from all trifling or disorderly conduct ; and thus to 
assert the dignity of the body and preserve its decorum 
while it is in session. 

469. The first business of a meeting is to choose a pre- 
siding officer. In large and formal assemblies, as political 
conventions, it is usual to begin with the selection of a 
temporary chairman. This is because in such assemblies 
the office of chairman or president is often so important 
that several persons desire it, and it is necessary to estab- 
lish order, so as to enable the assembly to choose that one 



RULES FOR DELIBERATIVE ASSEMBLIES 1 63 

whom a majority prefers. The temporary chairman calls 
the meeting to order ; and when quiet is obtained declares 
nominations in order, whereupon the candidates for chair- 
man or president and secretary are nominated and elected. 
Or it may happen that the temporary chairman appoints, 
at the desire of the assembly, a committee to report a list 
of officers. 

470. Where a public body comes together without pre- 
vious organization, there has usually been some prelimi- 
nary understanding among those who called it together as 
to the person to be chosen presiding officer ; and in such a 
case one of these rises in the meeting and nominates the 
person thus agreed on, and puts the nomination to vote. 
If the meeting chooses it may vote him down; and in such 
case, naturally, another person would then be proposed. 
Usually, however, there is no such disagreement on the 
first organization. 

471. In any case, the meeting is not organized and pre- 
pared for business until a presiding officer, and properly 
also a secretary, are chosen. 

472. Where the body already has officers, the chairman 
or president takes the chair punctually at the hour pre- 
viously appointed, and calls the meeting to order. 

473. In permanent bodies, the proceeding next in order 
is to call the roll of members. The object of this is to 
ascertain in a formal manner that a quorum is present. 

474. A quorum is the number of persons required by 
the rules of the assembly or society for the proper trans- 
action of business. Usually this is one more than half 
the total number of members ; but the number may be 
fixed by a special rule. No business can be properly 
transacted without a quorum, except the calling of the roll, 
and the necessary proceedings for summoning absent 



1 64 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

members. This is to prevent a minority from taking ad- 
vantage of the absence of the majority to adopt measures 
and transact business which would not have the consent of 
the majority. If at any time during the session a quorum 
is not present, any member may call the attention of the 
chairman to that fact, whereupon all business stops. Par- 
liamentary bodies, as Congress or a State legislature, 
have by law the power to compel the attendance of mem- 
bers ; and when no quorum is present, if the house does 
not wish to adjourn, it sends its sergeant-at-arms to sum- 
mon absent members to the bar, where they may be inter- 
rogated by the presiding officer as to the reason for their 
absence, and, if the house wishes, fined. Such a proceed- 
ing is styled a " Call of the House " ; and when it is 
determined on, the doors are usually locked, and remain 
locked until the house declares its wish to have them re- 
opened. This is to keep those present from leaving the 
house, and to maintain a quorum for business. 

475. The assembly being organized, and the officers in 
their places, it is the duty of the chairman or president to 
state the business before it. If the body has met in pur- 
suance of any law or previous resolution, it may be proper 
to read that. If several matters of business are to come 
up, he announces first that which is first in order ; and thus 
the body goes regularly to its work. 

476. It is the duty of the presiding officer to maintain 
order. To this end he, and not the house, is addressed 
by the speakers ; to him all motions, resolutions, and bills 
are submitted ; no member may speak unless he is first 
recognized by the president ; if several rise at once to 
address him, it is his part to recognize one, whereupon the 
others sit down ; and where, as constantly happens, mem- 
bers do not understand the order of business before the 



RULES FOR DELIBERATIVE ASSEMBLIES 1 65 

meeting, or its condition at any moment, he must be ready 
to explain, to decide upon the propriety of motions, and 
generally to conduct the meeting. It is of great impor- 
tance that the presiding officer should be treated with 
respect, that his decisions should be promptly and clearly 
made, and that they should be readily acquiesced in. If 
a member doubts the correctness of a chairman's decision, 
he may say so, and appeal to the house to support him ; 
and the house may, at its discretion, overrule such a 
decision. But this ought seldom to be done, and will 
rarely happen if the chairman is competent. Wrangling 
and f ussiness are productive of disorder in a public meeting ; 
and it is generally the most ignorant members who are 
ready to jump to their feet with a question of order or an 
appeal against the chairman. 

477. In legislative bodies where a part of the business 
is referred to committees to be considered and elaborated, 
such committees are either selected by the presiding officer 
— as in the Federal House of Representatives — or elected 
by the house itself — as in the United States Senate. In 
the latter case, practically, the majority meet in caucus, 
and there frame the committees, which are afterward 
formally reported and submitted to the vote of the whole 
body. The Speakership in the Lower House is much 
sought after, because of the power the Speaker has over 
the policy of the country by the selection of committees. 
Where the Speaker is an able man, he can thus at the 
beginning of a session give a direction to the public policy 
by placing at the heads of important committees men of 
decided views. Also, he has thus the power to favor his 
personal friends. The reference of business to committees 
is that these may consider the proposed measure, and report 
upon it to the house, which may then concur with the 



1 66 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

committee, or reject its report. This saves time, but it is 
also apt to prevent discussion ; and the Federal House of 
Representatives has in the course of time become the slave 
of its committees, who, except in the case of revenue 
measures, are very apt to prepare a verdict which the 
House is compelled to accept without debate, by the adroit 
use of a motion called "the previous question," of which 
you will hear farther on. 

478. The order of business is regulated by the meeting, 
which may set a certain day and hour for the considera- 
tion of a specified motion ; may declare a regular order for 
the introduction of business ; and may otherwise regulate 
this matter. In the Federal House of Representatives, for 
instance, for the general convenience, one day in the week 
is set apart for the consideration of private bills ; an hour 
on another day is set apart for a call of the States, for the 
introduction and reference of bills and joint resolutions; 
and if any member on a certain day can get the consent of 
the House by a two thirds vote, he may have even these 
rules suspended for the introduction of special business. 
In any case, and whatever business is to come up, the 
Speaker announces it to the House. 

479. When the member of an assembly wishes to make 
a motion or introduce a matter of business, he rises, and 
calls out, "Mr. Speaker" — or whatever the title of the 
presiding officer may be ; if he is recognized, he has then 
the floor, and states his proposition. He may be required 
to reduce this to writing ; and if it is an important matter 
he has probably taken the precaution to do this before- 
hand, so that it may be recorded without error. Any 
motion, to be entertained, must be seconded, which is an 
immediate proof to the assembly that more than one of its 
members favor it. A motion made and seconded, and 



RULES FOR DELIBERATIVE ASSEMBLIES 1 67 

announced by the presiding officer, is thereupon the prop- 
erty of the meeting, and can not be withdrawn without its 
consent ; this, however, is almost always given if desired. 

480. A fundamental rule is that a motion voted down can 
not be repeated until some other business has intervened. 

481. Thus the motion to adjourn, which is said to be 
always in order — because an assembly ought always to 
have it in its power to dissolve its session — can not, if it 
is voted down, be made again until some other motion has 
been made or business transacted. This is to prevent an 
irritating waste of time. 

482. It is another fundamental rule that no one can 
interrupt a speaker with a motion, even one to adjourn. 
The person who has the floor is entitled to complete his 
remarks, or to occupy the whole time allowed him by the 
meeting, and interruptions are out of order. If he gives 
permission to another to interrupt him he thereby resigns 
his own right to the floor; though he may give way 
for a brief interruption, by general consent, and resume 
afterward. 

483. Next in order, after the motion to adjourn, is the 
motion "to lay on the table"; which is substantially to 
adjourn the business in hand in order that something else 
may be taken up. 

484. Neither of these motions is debatable, because the 
assembly ought to have a right without delay, and at any 
time, to dissolve, or to turn to another subject. 

485. A successful motion to lay on the table is generally 
equivalent to a rejection of the measure. This cannot 
come up again out of its regular turn, except by a motion 
to take it up, or to reconsider the motion to lay it on the 
table ; and the pressure of business before a meeting 
usually makes its members reluctant to go back to meas- 



1 68 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

ures once disposed of or put out of the way. A motion 
to take a bill or other matter from the table is debatable. 

486. Third in order, among Parliamentary motions, is 
" the previous question." This is of the same nature as 
the two preceding : its object is to get done with business ; 
and, like the other two, it is not debatable, because the 
assembly ought to be able at any time to make known that 
it is ready to vote upon the question before it. When a 
member calls for "the previous question," and the call is 
seconded, the presiding officer is bound to put it. It takes 
this shape : " Shall the main question be now put ? " If 
the majority vote "aye," that shows that they have made 
up their minds, and wish no further debate. 

487. If the assembly, by supporting the previous ques- 
tion, demands the main question, then the presiding officer 
takes in their proper turn, beginning with the last offered, 
the several amendments to the question before the house, if 
there are any, and finally brings to vote the question itself. 

488. The previous question is sometimes an instrument 
in the hands of a majority to prevent debate, and to push 
through measures which perhaps would not bear discussion ; 
but where it is ruthlessly used, it is very apt to arouse a 
feeling of opposition which is dangerous to a majority. 

489. Where it is pretty certain that a public assembly or 
meeting is ready and desirous to vote, a cry of " Question ! 
question ! " calls the attention of the presiding officer to 
that fact ; and, if he perceives that the meeting really 
wishes to vote, he usually, before recognizing the next 
speaker, asks, " Is the meeting ready to vote on the 
proposition ? " and the answering cries tell him what is 
the wish of the members. In such a case there is no need 
for the " previous question " formally put. 

490. The three motions above described are not debata- 



RULES FOR DELIBERATIVE ASSEMBLIES 1 69 

ble, because, if they were, the assembly would be help- 
lessly in the hands of a few of its members, who could by 
interminable debates keep it in session, or prevent it from 
acting on bills or measures before it. The United States 
Senate does not allow the previous question, and the 
minority there sometimes deliberately and purposely put 
off decisions on measures by a long series of speeches, 
which have the object, by a continuous session, to wear 
out the majority, and bring them to terms or force them to 
a compromise. 

491. You must understand that a motion to adjourn is 
not subject even to an amendment to adjourn to a named 
day or hour; because, as an amendment, this would open 
debate. Where it is desired to substitute for an adjourn- 
ment without date one to a fixed date, it is usual to make 
a request that the first motion be withdrawn, whereupon 
the other is made. 

492. It is well to remember also that a motion to take 
a recess is different from one to adjourn. A recess only 
interrupts, and does not close the session ; and when after 
the recess the. assembly comes together, it proceeds to 
business at once without opening formalities, such as read- 
ing the journal or calling the roll. On the journal the 
date of the session remains unaltered, even though the 
recess should carry it over to another civil day. But a 
recess can not carry the meeting past the regular hour of 
its next day's assembling. 

493. The business before a meeting is in the shape 
either of a bill or a resolution. In either case it is subject 
to the following motions — besides those before mentioned 
— and in the order in which they are named : — 

494. To postpone to a fixed day or hour, whereby 
the meeting agrees to consider it at that time ; and when 



170 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

the time arrives the presiding officer's duty is to suspend 
other business, and lay that before the house. 

495. Or to commit — which means to refer it. to a com- 
mittee for consideration, which committee is expected to 
report upon it to the house, at its own convenience, or 
upon the order of the house. The business of legislative 
bodies in this country is too much referred to committees, 
as I have pointed out to you above ; and it is common to 
see a measure referred to a committee merely to get it 
permanently out of the way. Of the duties of committees 
I shall speak farther on. 

496. Or to amend. If the member who introduced the 
bill or resolution accepts the amendment, it is at once 
incorporated in his bill; if he rejects it, it becomes a sepa- 
rate part of the question, and the house votes upon it 
before it does on the bill. It is possible to amend an 
amendment (but not to amend that again); but it ought to 
be avoided, and the friends of a measure can agree pri- 
vately beforehand upon amendments. Sometimes its 
enemies try to kill it by amendments. 

497. Or, finally, to postpone.it indefinitely. In a legis- 
lative assembly the motion to lay on the table is practically 
equivalent to this, and is so used ; and in the House of 
Representatives, when a bill has been passed, in order to 
prevent an opponent from moving a reconsideration — 
which would bring it again before the house — it is cus- 
tomary for the mover of the bill himself to move that the 
vote by which it was just passed be reconsidered, and to 
move to lay that motion on the table. 

498. If you consider the matter you will see that the 
order of these motions, as prescribed in the rules, is 
founded on common sense, and a desire to enable an 
assembly to transact business without improper delays. 



RULES FOR DELIBERATIVE ASSEMBLIES 171 

499. To prevent undue haste, on the other hand, legis- 
lative bodies usually require a bill to be read three times, 
and often on three separate days ; measures are referred 
to committees for examination ; and on the final reading 
the bill is debated, unless the majority insists on the 
previous question. The reference of a measure to two 
houses, and after its passage by both to the President or 
Governor, is also a very important means of delay, because 
it gives time for thorough consideration. 

500. 'Committees are composed of selected members of 
the assembly ; and they are either appointed or elected, 
and for a special object. They may be permanent, or 
temporary and special. Their meetings, unless otherwise 
ordered, are private, so far as the public is concerned ; 
but it is held that any member of the assembly of which 
they are a part may attend their meetings. The first per- 
son named on the committee is usually its chairman ; and 
if a member moves the appointment of a committee, it is 
customary to name him as one of its members, and to make 
him its chairman unless reasons exist against that. The 
committee reports by its chairman, and the conclusions of 
the majority form the report. The minority of the com- 
mittee have no right to make a report ; but this is usually 
allowed, because they could bring their views before the 
house and the public in other ways. 

501. Legislatures and other permanent bodies some- 
times resolve the whole assembly into a committee, called 
the " Committee of the Whole House." It is done on mo- 
tion by a member, and for the consideration, usually, of a 
particular subject. When the house goes into committee of 
the whole, the speaker or presiding officer leaves the chair, 
calling a member to take his place. The presiding officer 
may take the floor in the committee, and take part in the 



172 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

debate. The committee of the whole can not conclude 
any business, and can not adjourn. When it has com- 
pleted the discussion of a bill, or is ready to cease for that 
time, a member moves "that the committee do now rise," 
whereupon, if the motion is carried, the speaker resumes 
his place, and his substitute in the committee reports to 
him briefly but formally what the committee has done, thus 
officially informing him of the stage at which the business 
was left. If the bill under consideration is ready for a 
vote, and that fact is reported, the speaker may then bring 
it to a vote without further delay. If the house while in 
committee of the whole desires to adjourn, it rises ; but 
only after the chairman has reported progress to the 
speaker is a motion to adjourn the house in order. While 
in committee, it is not proper to use the previous question 
to stop debate ; instead, the majority may vote that the 
committee rise, when the debate stands adjourned, and the 
reconstituted house takes up other business. The object 
of going into committee of the whole is to be easily rid of 
those rules which otherwise limit debate, and to make dis- 
cussion freer. In committee of the whole there is no limit 
to debate. 

502. When a bill or resolution is introduced, if the 
assembly is willing it may then be discussed, and in the 
debate the mover has the right to address the house first. 
In debate the friends and opponents of the question should 
have the floor alternately, and it is usual for the mover to 
close the debate. No one is expected to speak more than 
once on the same question or bill. 

503. In debate the speakers should confine themselves 
rigorously to the question ; and if any one wanders away 
in his remarks to other matters, he may properly be called 
to order by the presiding officer on the request of a mem- 



RULES FOR DELIBERATIVE ASSEMBLIES 1 73 

ber. All personalities should be avoided ; and to assist in 
this, it is a rule that no member shall, in debate, be called 
or spoken of by his name. In legislative bodies this rule 
is very rigidly adhered to ; and in the British House of 
Commons, when the Speaker calls a member to order, and 
has difficulty in procuring order, by an old tradition his 
last resort is a threat to "call the gentleman by name." 
As his threat has always been effective, I believe it is not 
known what would be the result if it were actually carried 
into effect. 

504. In recognizing those who wish to speak during a 
debate, the presiding officer exercises a certain liberty of 
choice ; but he must take care to be fair to both sides. If 
the debate is important, and comes up after notice, mem- 
bers often privately inform the presiding officer that they 
desire to speak ; and he then makes a list of their names, 
and may properly arrange them in the order of their abili- 
ties if he wishes ; taking care, however, that both sides are 
fairly represented. He then recognizes among those who 
rise to obtain the floor those on his list, and may give pri- 
vate notice to each beforehand when his turn is at hand. 

505. The assembly may limit debaters to a specified 
time, giving each five or ten minutes, or half an hour; and 
it may, by unanimous consent, extend the time of any 
speaker who has not completed his remarks, and whom 
it wishes to hear. But such a favor must be by unanimous 
consent. 

506. When the measure comes to a vote the presiding 
officer should clearly state it, and he then adds: "Those 
who are in favor of this will vote Aye, the contrary, No." 
And he should be very particular to put the question so 
that every member may understand the bearing or effect 
of his vote upon the question. 



174 POLITICS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS 

507. Those only may vote who are within the proper 
limits of the meeting when their names are called. If, for 
instance, a part only of the hall is reserved for the meet- 
ing, and the remainder for an audience, a member stand- 
ing without the barriers of separation has no right to vote. 

508. Finally, remember that one of the main and most 
important objects of a deliberative assembly is to debate. 
It is not a merit, but a fault, in such an assembly to adopt 
hastily a number of measures prepared beforehand by a 
committee or caucus; it is far better, more conducive to 
a proper understanding of the business in hand, and to the 
public welfare, in the case of conventions and other public 
meetings, that the measures proposed should be discussed, 
even if apparently time should be thus lost. 

509. I have aimed to give you only such a brief outline 
of the rules in accordance with which meetings should be 
conducted as will let you understand the general princi- 
ples, and references to congressional and other rules are 
only to illustrate these statements. Legislative bodies are 
guided in intricate cases by formal precedents, which 
are stated in large books, such as Barclay's Digest; works 
which are not only important to legislators, but interesting 
as showing the growth of what are called Parliamentary 
rules. 



APPENDIX 

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF 

AMERICA 



We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, 
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of 
America. 

ARTICLE I. SECTION i. — I. All legislative powers herein granted shall be 
vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and 
House of Representatives. 

Section 2. — 1. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members 
chosen every second year by the people of the several States ; and the electors 
in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most nu- 
merous branch of the State legislature. 

2. No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age 
of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and 
who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be 
chosen. 

3. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several 
States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective 
numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free per- 
sons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians 
not taxed, three fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be 
made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United 
States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they 
shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for 
every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative ; and 
until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be en- 
titled to choose three ; Massachusetts, eight ; Rhode Island and Providence 
Plantations, one ; Connecticut, five ; New York, six ; New Jersey, four ; Penn- 
sylvania, eight ; Delaware, one ; Maryland, six ; Virginia, ten ; North Carolina, 
five ; South Carolina, five ; and Georgia, three. 

4. When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the executive 
authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies. 

*75 



1 76 APPENDIX 

5. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other offi- 
cers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment. 

SECTION 3.— i. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two 
Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years ; and 
each Senator shall have one vote. 

2. Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first elec- 
tion, they shall be divided as equally as may be, into three classes. The seats of 
the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second 
year, of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year, and of the third 
class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one third may be chosen every 
second year ; and if vacancies happen, by resignation or otherwise, during the 
recess of the legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary 
appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill such 
vacancies. 

3. No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of 
thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall 
not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen. 

4. The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, 
but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. 

5. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a president pro 
tempore, in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall exercise the office 
of President of the United States. 

6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sit- 
ting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President 
of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside ; and no person shall 
be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present. 

7. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal 
from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or 
profit, under the United States; but the party convicted shall nevertheless be 
liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment, according to law. 

SECTION 4. — 1. The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Sen- 
ators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature 
thereof; but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make or alter such regula- 
tions, except as to the places of choosing Senators. 

2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting 
shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a 
different day. 

Section 5. — 1. Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and 
qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a 
quorum to do business ; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and 
may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members in such manner 
and under such penalties as each House may provide. 

2. Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members 
for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1 77 

3. Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time 
publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy ; 
and the yeas and nays of the members of either House, on any question, shall, 
at the desire of one fifth of those present, be entered on the journal. 

4. Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent 
of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that 
in which the two Houses shall be sitting. 

Section 6. — 1. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensa- 
tion for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of 
the United States. They shall, in all cases except treason, felony, and breach of 
the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their 
respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same ; and for any 
speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place. 

2. No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was 
elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States 
which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been in- 
creased, during such time ; and no person holding any office under the United 
States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office. 

Section 7. — 1. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of 
Representatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments, as on 
other bills. 

2. Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the 
Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United 
States ; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it with his objec- 
tions to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objec- 
tions at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such 
reconsideration, two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be 
sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise 
be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a 
law. But in all such cases the votes of both Houses shall be determined by 
yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall 
be entered on the journal of each House respectively. If any bill shall not be 
returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have 
been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had 
signed it, unless the Congress, by their adjournment, prevent its return, in which 
case it shall not be a law. 

3. Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of the Senate 
and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of ad- 
journment) shall be presented to the President of the United States, and before 
the same shall take effect shall be approved by him, or, being disapproved by 
him, shall be re-passed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill. 

SECTION 8. — The Congress shall have power — 

I. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and 
NORD. — 12 



178 APPENDIX 

provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States ; but 
all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States ; 

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States ; 

3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, 
and with the Indian tribes; 

4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the 
subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States ; 

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin, and fix 
the standard of weights and measures ; 

6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current 
coin of the United States; 

7. To establish post-offices and post-roads ; 

8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for 
limited times to .authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective 
writings and discoveries ; 

9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court ; 

10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and 
offenses against the law of nations ; 

11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules con- 
cerning captures on land and water ; 

12. To raise and support armies; but no appropriation of money to that use 
shall be for a longer term than two years ; 

13. To provide and maintain a navy ; 

14. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval 
forces ; 

15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, 
suppress insurrections, and repel invasions ; 

16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for 
governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United 
States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers and 
the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by 
Congress ; 

17. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such district 
(not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States and the 
acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United 
States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of 
the legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, 
magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings ; and, 

18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into 
execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution 
in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. 

SECTION 9. — 1. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the 
States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the 
Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1 79 

duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each 
person. 

2. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless 
when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. 

3. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. 

4. No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the 
census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to be taken. 

5. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. No pref- 
erence shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of 
one State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to or from one State 
be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another. 

6. No money shall be drawn from the treasury but in consequence of appro- 
priations made by law ; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and 
expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time. 

7. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States ; and no person 
holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the 
Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind what- 
ever, from any king, prince, or foreign state. 

Section 10. — 1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confedera- 
tion ; grant letters of marque and reprisal ; coin money ; emit bills of credit ; 
make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts ; pass any 
bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, 
or grant any title of nobility. 

2. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or 
duties on imports or exports except what may be absolutely necessary for exe- 
cuting its inspection laws : and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by 
any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the treasury of the United 
States ; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the 
Congress. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of ton- 
nage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or 
compact with another State or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless 
actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. 

ARTICLE II. Section i.— i. The executive power shall be vested in a Pres- 
ident of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term 
of four years, and, together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same term, 
be elected as follows: 

2. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof may 
direct, a number of Electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Repre- 
sentatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress ; but no Senator or 
Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United 
States, shall be appointed an Elector. 

Clause j has been superseded by the 12th Article of Amendments. 

4. The Congress may determine the time of choosing the Electors, and the 
day on which they shall give their votes ; which day shall be the same through- 
out the United States. 



l8o APPENDIX 

5. No person, except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States 
at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of 
President ; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have 
attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within 
the United States. 

6. In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, resig- 
nation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of said office, the same 
shall devolve on the Vice-President ; and the Congress may by law provide for 
the case of removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the President and 
Vice-President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such offi- 
cer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed or a President shall be 
elected. 

7. The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation, 
which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he 
shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other 
emolument from the United States, or any of them. 

8. Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following 
oath or affirmation: 

" I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of 
President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, pro- 
tect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." 

Section 2. — 1. The President shall be commander-in-chief of the army and 
navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called 
into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in 
writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any 
subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power 
to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in 
cases of impeachment. 

2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to 
make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall 
nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint 
Embassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, 
and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein 
otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law ; but the Congress 
may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper, 
in the President alone, in the Courts of law, or in the heads of Departments. 

3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen 
during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at 
the end of their next session. 

Section 3. — He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress information of 
the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as 
he shall judge necessary and expedient ; he may, on extraordinary occasions, 
convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between 
them with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES l8l 

time as he shall think proper ; he shall receive Embassadors and other public 
Ministers ; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall com- 
mission all the officers of the United States. 

SECTION 4.— The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the United 
States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, 
treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. 

ARTICLE III. SECTION i. — The judicial power of the United States shall 
be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress 
may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the Supreme 
and inferior Courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at 
stated times, receive for their services a compensation which shall not be dimin- 
ished during their continuance in office. 

Section 2.— i. The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law and equity 
arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, 
or which shall' be made, under their authority ; to all cases affecting Embassadors, 
other public Ministers, and Consuls ; to all cases of admiralty and maritime juris- 
diction ; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party ; to contro- 
versies between two or more States ; between a State and citizens of another 
State ; between citizens of different States ; between citizens of the same State 
claiming lands under grants of different States ; and between a State, or the cit- 
izens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects. 

2. In all cases affecting Embassadors, other public Ministers, and Consuls, and 
those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original 
jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall 
have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions and 
under such regulations as the Congress shall make. 

3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; 
and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been 
committed ; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such 
place or places as the Congress may by law have directed. 

SECTION 3. — 1. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying 
war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. 
No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two wit- 
nesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. 

2. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but 
no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except dur- 
ing the life of the person attainted. 

ARTICLE IV. SECTION 1.— Full faith and credit shall be given in each 
State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. 
And the Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such 
acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof. 

SECTION 2. — 1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges 
and immunities of citizens in the several States. 

2. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who 



1 82 APPENDIX 

shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the 
executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be re- 
moved to the State having jurisdiction of the crime. 

3. No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, es- 
caping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be 
discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the 
party to whom such service or labor may be due. 

Section 3. — 1. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; 
but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other 
State ; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts 
of States, without the consent of the legislatures of the States concerned as well 
as of the Congress. 

2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules 
and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United 
States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice 
any claims of the United States or of any particular State. 

Section 4. — The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a 
republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion ; 
and, on application of the legislature, or of the Executive (when the legislature 
can not be convened) against domestic violence. 

ARTICLE V. — The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall 
deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the 
application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a 
convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to 
all intents and purposes as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legis- 
latures of three fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three fourths 
thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the 
Congress : provided, that no Amendment which may be made prior to the year 
one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and 
fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article ; and that no State, without 
its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. 

ARTICLE VI. — 1. All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before 
the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States 
under this Constitution as under the Confederation. 

2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made 
in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the 
authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land ; and the 
judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or 
laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. 

3. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of 
the several State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the 
United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to 
support this Constitution ; but no religious test shall ever be required as a quali- 
fication to any office or public trust under the United States. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1 83 

ARTICLE VII.— The ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be 
sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratify- 
ing the same. 



AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION. 

ARTICLE I.— Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of 
speech or of the press ; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to 
petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

ARTICLE II. — A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a 
free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. 

ARTICLE III. — No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any 
house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to 
be prescribed by law. 

ARTICLE IV. — The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be vio- 
lated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath 
or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the per- 
sons or things to be seized. 

ARTICLE V. — No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise 
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except 
in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual 
service in time of war or public danger ; nor shall any person be subject for the 
same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb ; nor shall be compelled 
in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, 
liberty, or property, without due process of law ; nor shall private property be 
taken for public use without just compensation. 

ARTICLE VI. — In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the 
right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district 
wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been pre- 
viously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the 
accusation ; to be confronted with the witnesses against him ; to have compulsory 
process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel 
for his defense. 

ARTICLE VII. — In suits at common law where the value in controversy 
shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no 
fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United 
States, than according to the rules of the common law. . 

ARTICLE VIII. — Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines 
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

ARTICLE IX. — The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall 
not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 



1 84 APPENDIX 

ARTICLE X.— The powers not delegated to the United States by the Con- 
stitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, 
or to the people. 

ARTICLE XL— The judicial power of the United States shall not be con- 
strued to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against 
one of the United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects 
of any foreign state. 

ARTICLE XII. — The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote 
by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be 
an inhabitant of the same State with themselves ; they shall name in their ballots 
the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as 
Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as Pres- 
ident, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes 
for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat 
of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. 
The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of 
Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted ; 
the person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be the Presi- 
dent, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed ; 
and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest 
numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of those voted for as President, the 
House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. 
But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the represen- 
tation from each State having one vote ; a quorum for this purpose shall consist 
of a member or members from two thirds of the States, and a majority of all the 
States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives 
shall not choose a President, whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon 
them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President 
shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disa- 
bility of the President. The person having the greatest number of votes as 
Vice-President shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the 
whole number of Electors appointed ; and if no person have a majority, then 
from the two highest numbers on the list the Senate shall choose the Vice-Pres- 
ident ; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two thirds of the whole number 
of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. 
But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be 
eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States. 

ARTICLE XIII. — i. Neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a 
punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall 
exist within the, United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. 

ARTICLE XIV.— I. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, 
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of 
the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 1 85 

shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor 
shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due 
process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protec- 
tion of the laws. 

2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according 
to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each 
State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election 
for the choice of Electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, 
Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the 
members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of 
such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or 
in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis 
of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of 
such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one 
years of age in such State. 

3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector of 
President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the 
United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a 
member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of 
any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to sup- 
port the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or 
rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But 
Congress may, by a vote of two thirds of each House, remove such disability. 

4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, in- 
cluding debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in sup- 
pressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the 
United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred 
in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the 
loss or emancipation of any slave ; but all such debts, obligations, and claims 
shall be held illegal and void. 

5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the 
provisions of this article. 

ARTICLE XV.— 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall 
not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of 
race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 

2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legis- 
lation. 



QUESTIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 
UNITED STATES 

PREAMBLE 

Who adopted the Constitution ? Why a " more perfect union " ? More perfect 
than what ? 

ARTICLE I 

Section I.— How is the Congress composed ? 

Section II. — i. How long does a representative serve? What are the 
qualifications of voters for representatives ? 

2. What are the qualifications of a representative ? 

3. Explain the ratio of representation. 

4. In case of the resignation or death of a representative, how is the vacancy 
filled? Why does not the governor appoint a successor? (Ans. Because the 
representative is to represent directly the people, and must therefore be chosen 
directly by them.) 

5. How are the officers of the House of Representatives chosen ? 

Section III. — 1. How are senators chosen? What therefore do they repre- 
sent ? For how long are they chosen ? 

2. Who appoints senators to fill a vacancy? Why are one third of the 
Senate chosen every second year? 

3. What are the qualifications of a senator ? 

4. Who presides over the Senate ? 

5. What is the office of the President pro tempore? 

6. When is the Senate a court of justice ? Who presides when the President of 
the United States is tried ? Why not the Vice-President ? 

7. What are the limitations to the power of the Senate in impeachment ? What 
is the meaning of impeachment ? Explain the respective powers of the House of 
Representatives and of the Senate in this matter. 

Section IV. — 1. May Congress impose on the States a uniform method of 
choosing representatives ? And of senators ? 

2. How long does a Congress last ? How often must it assemble ? May it 
hold a continuous session ? (Ans. Yes.) On what day must it meet ? On what 
day does it cease to exist ? May a new Congress meet as soon as the previous one 
adjourns ? (Ans. Yes.) 

SECTION V. — 1. What is a quorum? Who judges of the qualifications and 
election of the members of either House ? Can either House compel the attend- 
ance of members? Why has it this power? 

2. Who determines the rules ? 

186 



QUESTIONS OX THE CONSTITUTION 1 87 

3. Have both Houses power to make part of their journals secret ? Why are 
the yeas and nays to be entered on the journal ? 

4. Why may not one House adjourn for more than three days, or to another 
place, during the session ? 

SECTION VI. — 1. Why are members privileged from arrest ? Why exempt 
from question elsewhere for words spoken in debate ? What does this exemption 
mean ? (Ans. It preserves the member from suits for libel and slander, and other 
penal proceedings, for words spoken in his place, and thus secures him the utmost 
liberty of speech.) 

2. What is the object of this clause ? 

SECTION VII. — 1. Where are revenue bills originated ? Why ? 

2. State the authorities who must approve a bill before it becomes a law. What 
happens if the President objects ? How long may the President consider a bill ? 

3. Must all bills be presented to him ? 

SECTION VIII. — W T hat is the limitation to the power of Congress to levy taxes ? 
Recite the chief powers conferred on Congress in this section. In exercising these 
powers, how is Congress guided ? {Ans. First, by the provisions of the Constitu- 
tion ; and, second, by the will of the people, which it represents.) What is the 
object of the last clause of this section ? {Ans. It conclusively confers power on 
Congress to pass all laws necessary to carry into effect the measures it has deter- 
mined on.) 

Section IX. — 1. To what persons does this clause refer ? 

2. Explain the meaning of habeas corpus. 

3. What is an ex post facto law ? Why is it prohibited ? 

4. What is a capitation tax ? Why is it so limited ? 

5. What is the effect of this clause ? (Ans. It helps to secure freedom of com- 
mercial intercourse between the different States.) 

6. What is the effect of this clause ? 

7. What is the object of this clause ? 

SECTION X. — 1. Why are the prohibitions declared in this clause? {Ans. 
Because such acts, if performed by States, would cause confusion, and make a less 
instead of a "more perfect union.") 

2. Why these prohibitions ? (Ans. Because the acts prohibited to the States 
would, if attempted, interfere with the supreme authority of the Federal Govern- 
ment within the limits assigned to it in Section VIII.) 

ARTICLE II 

SECTION I. — 1. What is the executive power ? Explain why Congress can not 
be called an executive power. Who is the executive head ? 

2. What is the number of the electors ? Why are Federal officers prohibited 
from serving as electors ? 

3. (For the manner of electing the President and Vice-President, see the 12th 
Amendment.) 

4. Is the time of choosing electors uniform all over the United States ? Why 
should it be ? What is the day ? 



1 88 APPENDIX 

5. Who may be elected President ? 

6. Who succeeds the President in case of his death or removal ? (Ans. In case 
of the death of both President and Vice-President, Congress has provided, by a 
law adopted in 1886, that the office of acting President shall be filled by the Secre- 
tary of State ; or, in case of his death also, by the Secretary of the Treasury ; and 
so on through the list of seven cabinet officers.) 

7. Why is the salary of the President fixed during his term ? 

8. State what the President promises in his oath of office. 

SECTION II. — 1. Why is the President made commander-in-chief of the armies, 
navy, and militia in time of war ? (Ans. In order that all the powers of the Fed- 
eral Government may be wielded by a single hand effectively for a single purpose. 
Remember that the Congress may, if it pleases, deny him an army or a navy.) 
Why may he require the opinion in writing of the heads of departments ? 
Why should he not pardon or reprieve in cases of impeachment ? (Ans. Because 
impeachment is usually for malfeasance in office, and works only removal and 
incapacity to hold office. 

2. Who makes treaties ? If the Senate rejects a treaty, does it fall ? Why 
should the President nominate his subordinates? 

3. When vacancies happen during a recess of the Senate, how are they filled ? 
SECTION III. — What are the documents called in which the President gives to 

Congress information, and advises them ? Why may he convene both Houses ? 
May he convene only one ? Is he responsible for the faithful execution or 
enforcement of the laws ? 

Section IV. — For what offenses may civil officers be removed from office, and 
how? 

ARTICLE III 

Section I. — How is the judicial power of the United States composed? For 
what period do the judges hold office? Who appoints them? (See Art. II., 
Sect. II.) Why should not their salaries be diminished? (Ans. Because they 
have to interpret the laws ; and, in doing so, might excite the hostility of Congress, 
which might, if it had the power, punish them by lessening their salaries.) 

SECTION II. — 1. Trace out the powers of United States Courts. Do they 
adjudicate on State laws ? (Ans. Only so far as to declare whether they are or are 
not in violation of the Federal Constitution.) 

2. What is the meaning of original and appellate jurisdiction ? 

3. Why should trials of crimes be within the States where they are committed ? 
Section III. — 1. What is treason ? 

2. What is corruption of blood ? What is forfeiture ? 

ARTICLE IV 

Section I. — Why was this provision enacted ? 

Section II. — 1. Has a citizen of New York the same privileges in Ohio or 
Louisiana as a citizen of those States ? ' Why is this necessary ? 
2. Why must the governor of a State demand, in another State, the surrender of 



QUESTIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION 1 89 

a criminal or person charged with crime ? (Ans. Because constant disorders and 
abuses would occur if irresponsible police officers of one State might go into 
another to make arrests.) 

3. To what class of persons did this paragraph refer ? 

Section III. — 1. On what condition may new States be formed? Why these 
limitations ? 

2. Does Congress govern the territories ? What property has the United 
States ? Is its authority supreme over forts, arsenals, lighthouses, etc. ? 

Section IV. — What must the Federal Government guarantee a State ? Against 
what must it protect it ? Why the limitation as to its power to repress " domestic 
violence" in a State? (Ans. To force the governor and legislature of a State to 
use to the utmost their own legal authority before calling on the Federal Govern- 
ment, and thus to invigorate the local governments.) 

ARTICLE V 

How are amendments to the Constitution proposed ? How adopted ? Why 
was the limitation as to equal suffrage in the Senate adopted ? Is it wise to make 
the method of amendment as cumbrous as it is ? If so, why ? 

ARTICLE VI 

1. To what does this clause refer ? 

2. What constitutes the supreme law of the land ? Must we obey a Federal law, 
even if a State law forbids it ? 

3. Who must swear to obey the Constitution ? 

ARTICLE VII 

Was the Constitution ratified by all the States ? How many States were needed 
to ratify it ? 



AMENDMENTS 

ARTICLE I 
State the three supreme rights of the people protected by this article. 

ARTICLE II 
Does a law prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons»violate this provision ? 
Why not ? 

ARTICLE III 

Why was this provision advisable ? 

ARTICLE IV 
What are unreasonable searches and seizures ? What are the three necessary 
elements of a warrant of arrest, under this article ? What is the meaning of war- 
rant ? Why should the power of arrest be thus guarded ? Take the reverse of 
each limitation, and examine what power it would give to an officer. 



I9O APPENDIX 

ARTICLE V 

Why are persons in the army and navy, and in the militia in time of war, 
excepted from the safeguard of preliminary indictment by grand jury ? What is 
the office of a grand jury ? Why should not a person be twice tried for the same 
offense ? What is due process of law ? 

ARTICLE VI 

State the guards specified in this article. Why are these provisions important 
to the liberty of the citizen ? (The teacher should make the class intelligently 
explain the necessity for each separate provision; as, Why should a trial be 
speedy ? Why public ? An excellent way to do this is to let them reverse every 
proposition.) 

ARTICLE VII 

What is the right guarded by this article ? 

ARTICLE VIII 
What rights are here guarded ? 

ARTICLES IX., X 
What are the objects of these articles ? 

ARTICLE XI 
What previous article of the Constitution does this Amendment define ? 

ARTICLE XII 

Describe the manner of electing the President and Vice-President. 

If there should be more than two candidates for President, is a majority over 
all required? Who elects if the electors fail ? Why must the House act imme- 
diately ? How are the votes taken ? How many votes has each State * What 
happens if the House of Representatives does not elect ? 

Who elects the Vice-President if the electors fail? 

Who may be elected Vice-President ? 

ARTICLE XIII 
What is the object of this article ? 

• ARTICLE XIV 

1. Who are citizens of the United States ? 

2. What is the object of this clause ? 

3 and 4. What is the object of these clauses ? 

ARTICLE XV 

What right does this article confer on citizens ? Does it prohibit a State from 
adopting an educational qualification for the suffrage ? What is it intended to 
guard against? 



THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. 

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of 

America. 



When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to 
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to as- 
sume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which 
the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the 
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel 
them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are created equal ; that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that among 
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, 
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the con- 
sent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes de- 
structive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to 
institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organ- 
izing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their 
safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long 
established should not be changed for light and transient causes ; and, accord- 
ingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed' to suffer, while 
evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which 
they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursu- 
ing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute 
despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and 
to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient suf- 
ferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them 
to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King 
of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in 

191 



192 APPENDIX 

direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To 
prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world: 

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the 
public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing im- 
portance, unless suspended in their operations till his assent should be obtained ; 
and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of 
people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the 
legislature — a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and 
distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of 
fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing, with manly 
firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. 

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be 
elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned 
to the people at large for their exercise ; the State remaining, in the meantime, 
exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for that pur- 
pose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners ; refusing to pass others 
to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appro- 
priations of lands. 

He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws 
for establishing judiciary powers. 

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, 
and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers 
to harass our people and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the con- 
sent of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the 
civil power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our con- 
stitution, and unacknowledged by our laws ; giving his assent to their acts of 
pretended legislation : 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : 

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which 
they should commit on the inhabitants of these States : 

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world : 

For imposing taxes on us without our consent : 

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury : 

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses : 

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, es- 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 1 93 

tablishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to 
render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute 
rule into these colonies : 

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, 
fundamentally, the forms of our governments : 

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with 
power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection, and 
waging war against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and de- 
stroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete 
the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances 
of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and 
totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens taken captive on the high seas, to bear 
arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and 
brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to 
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose 
known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and 
conditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most 
humble terms : our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated 
injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define 
a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have 
warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an 
unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circum- 
stances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their 
native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by the ties of our 
common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt 
our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice 
of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity 
which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of man- 
kind—enemies in war; in peace, friends. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 
in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the 
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by authority of 
the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these 
united colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States ; that 
they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political 
connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, 
totally dissolved ; and that, as Free and Independent States, they have full power 
NOKD. — 13 



194 APPENDIX 

to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do 
all other acts and things which Independent States may of right do. And for the 
support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine 
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our 
sacred honor. 

JOHN HANCOCK. 

New Hampshire.— Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton. 

Massachusetts Bay.— Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, 
Elbridge Gerry. 

Rhode ISLAND, Etc.— Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery. 

Connecticut. — Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, 
Oliver Wolcott. 

New York. — William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris. 

New Jersey. — Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, 
John Hart, Abraham Clark. 

Pennsylvania. — Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John 
Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George 
Ross. 

DELAWARE. — Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas M'Kean. 

Maryland.— Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll 
of Carrollton. 

Virginia. — George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin 
Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton. 

North Carolina. — William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. 

South Carolina. — Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas 
Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton. 

Georgia. — Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton. 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. 

(September 17, 1796.) 

Friends and Fellow-Citizens : — The period for a new election of a citizen 
to administer the executive government of the United States being not far distant, 
and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating 
the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears to' me proper, 
especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that 
I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed to decline being con- 
sidered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made. 

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that this resolu- 
tion has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations apper- 
taining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country ; and that, in 
withdrawing the tender of service, which silence, in my situation, might imply, I 
am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest ; no deficiency of 
grateful respect for your past kindness; but am supported by a full conviction that 
the step is compatible with both. 

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your 
suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to the 
opinion of duty, and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I con- 
stantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power, consistently with 
motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from 
which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this, 
previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an address to 
declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then perplexed and critical posture 
of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to 
my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea. 

I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no longer 
renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or 
propriety; and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for my services, 
that, in the present circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my 
determination to retire. 

The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were explained 
on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will only say that I have, 
with good intentions, contributed toward the organization and administration of 
the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. 
Not unconscious, in the outset, of the inferiority of my qualifications, experience in 

195 



196 APPENDIX 

my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has strengthened the motives 
to diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes 
me, more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be 
welcome. Satisfied that, if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my 
services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that, while choice 
and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it. 

In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career of 
my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledgment 
of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many honors 
it has conferred upon me ; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has 
supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my 
inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness 
unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let 
it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our 
annals that, under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, 
were liable to mislead, amid appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of for- 
tune often discouraging, in situations in which, not unfrequently, want of success 
has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the 
essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans, by which they were 
effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my 
grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that Heaven may continue to you 
the choicest tokens of its beneficence ; that your union and brotherly affection may 
be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be 
sacredly maintained ; that its administration in every department may be stamped 
with wisdom and virtue ; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, 
under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preservation 
and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to them the glory of recom- 
mending it to the applause, the affection, and adoption of every nation which is yet 
a stranger to it. 

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop ; but a solicitude for your welfare, which can not 
end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge 
me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to 
recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much 
reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important 
to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These will be offered to you with 
the more freedom as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a 
parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsel ; nor 
can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments 
on a former and not dissimilar occasion. 

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no rec- 
ommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. 

The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to 
you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence ; 
the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of 
your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But, as it is easy 
to foresee, that, from different causes, and from different quarters, much pains will 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 1 97 

be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this 
truth ; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of 
internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often 
covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly 
estimate the immense value of your National Union to your collective and indi- 
vidual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable 
attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palla- 
dium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with 
jealous anxiety ; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it 
can, in any event, be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning 
of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble 
the sacred ties which now link together the various parts. 

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by 
birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your 
affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capa- 
city, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived 
from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same 
religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have, in a common cause, 
fought and triumphed together : the independence and liberty you possess are 
the work of joint councils and joint efforts, of common dangers, sufferings, and 
successes. 

But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your 
sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your 
interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives 
for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole. 

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by the 
equal laws of a common government, finds, in the productions of the latter, great 
additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise, and precious mate- 
rials of manufacturing industry. The South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by 
the agency of the North, sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. 
Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular 
navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in different ways, to nourish and 
increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks forward to the protec- 
tion of a maritime strength to which itself is unequally adapted. The East, in like 
intercourse with the West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of 
interior communications by land and water will more and more find, a valuable 
vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad or manufactures at home. 
The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its growth and comfort; and, 
what is, perhaps, of still greater consequence, it must, of necessity, owe the secure 
enjoyment of indispensable outlets for its own productions to the weight, influence, 
and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an 
indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the 
West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate 
strength, or from an apostate and unnatural connection with any foreign power, 
must be intrinsically precarious. 

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular 



ig8 APPENDIX 

interest in union, all the parts combined can not fail to find, in the united mass of 
means and efforts, greater strength, greater resource, proportionally greater security 
from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations ; 
and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from 
those broils and wars between themselves which so frequently afflict neighboring 
countries not tied together by the same governments; which their own rivalships 
alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attach- 
ments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will 
avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any 
form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as 
particularly hostile to republican liberty ; in this sense it is that your union ought 
to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought 
to endear to you the preservation of the other. 

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and virtu- 
ous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of patri- 
otic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace so large 
a sphere ? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation, in such a case, 
were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole, 
with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will afford 
a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With 
such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, 
while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always 
be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who, in any quarter, may endeavor to 
weaken its bands. 

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our union, it occurs as matter of 
serious concern that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing 
parties by geographical discriminations — Northern and Southern, Atlantic and 
Western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a 
real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of party to 
acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and 
aims of other districts. You can not shield yourselves too much against the jeal- 
ousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations ; they tend 
to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal 
affection. The inhabitants of our western country have lately had a useful lesson 
on this head : they have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unani- 
mous ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the universal satis- 
faction at that event throughout the United States, a decisive proof how unfounded 
were the suspicions propagated among them of a policy in the General Govern- 
ment and in the Atlantic States unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mis- 
sissippi ; they have been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great 
Britain and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in 
respect to our foreign relations, toward confirming their prosperity. Will it not be 
their wisdom to rely, for the preservation of these advantages, on the UNION by 
which they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if 
such there are, who would sever them from their brethren, and connect them with 
aliens ? 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 1 99 

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is 
indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts, can be an adequate 
substitute ; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which 
all alliances, in all times, have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you 
have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of a Constitution of Govern- 
ment better calculated than your former for an intimate Union, and for the effica- 
cious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of 
your own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and 
mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its 
powers uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its 
own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect 
for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties 
enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political 
systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Gov- 
ernment. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit 
and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very 
idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes 
the duty of every individual to obey the established government. 

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, 
under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counter- 
act, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are 
destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to 
organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force ; to put, in the place 
of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and 
enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs 
of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill- concerted 
and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and whole- 
some plans, digested by common councils, and modified by mutual interests. 

However combinations or associations of the above description may now and 
then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to 
become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be 
enabled to subvert the power of the people, and usurp for themselves the reins of 
government; destroying, afterward, the very engines which had lifted them to 
unjust dominion. 

Toward the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your 
present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregu- 
lar oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the 
spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One 
method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations 
which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what can not 
be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remem- 
ber that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of gov- 
ernments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by 
wnich to test the real tendency of the existing Constitution of a country; that 
facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to 
perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remem- 



200 APPENDIX 

ber, especially, that, for the efficient management of your common interest in a 
country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent 
with the security of perfect liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such 
a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. 
It is, indeed, little else than a name where the government is too feeble to with- 
stand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the 
limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil 
enjoyment of the rights of person and property. 

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular 
reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now 
take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against 
the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. 

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the 
strongest passions of the human mind. It exists, under different shapes, in all 
governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the 
popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. 

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of 
revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has per- 
petrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads 
at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries 
which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the 
absolute power of an individual ; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing 
faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition 
to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty. 

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which, nevertheless, 
ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the 
spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to 
discourage and restrain it. 

It serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public Admin- 
istration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms ; 
kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments, occasionally, riot and 
insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a 
facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. 
Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of 
another. 

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the 
administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. 
This, within certain limits, is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical 
cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of 
party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is 
a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will 
always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being con- 
stant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate 
and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to 
prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. 

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 201 

inspire caution, in those intrusted with its administration, to confine themselves 
within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the 
powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment 
tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, 
whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of 
power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is 
sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal 
checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into dif- 
ferent depositories, and constituting each the Guardian of the Public Weal against 
invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern ; 
some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must 
be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribu- 
tion or modification of the constitutional powers be, in any particular, wrong, let it 
be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. 
But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this in one instance may be 
the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are 
destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance, in permanent evil, 
any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield. 

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and 
Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of 
Patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, 
these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, 
equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume 
could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply 
be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of 
religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in 
Courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality 
can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence 
of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both 
forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious 
principle. 

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular 
government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of 
free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference 
upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric ? 

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general 
diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives 
force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. 

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One 
method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible ; avoiding occasions of 
expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to 
prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; 
avoiding, likewise, the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions 
of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts 
which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon 
posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution of these 



202 APPENDIX 

maxims belongs to your Representatives, but it is necessary that public opinion 
should cooperate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, it is essen- 
tial that you should practically bear in mind that toward the payment of debts 
there must be revenue ; that to have revenue there must be taxes ; that no taxes 
can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant ; that the 
intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of the proper objects 
(which is always a choice of difficulties), ought to be a decisive motive for a 
candid construction of the conduct of the Government in making it, and for 
a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue which the public 
exigencies may at any time dictate. 

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations ; cultivate peace and harmony 
with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good 
policy does not equally enjoin it ? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at 
no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too 
novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. 
Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan 
would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady 
adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent 
felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at least, is recommended by 
every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas ! is it rendered impossible 
by its vices ? 

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that permanent, 
inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for 
others, should be excluded ; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings 
toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an 
habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to 
its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from 
its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each 
more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and 
to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute 
occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. 
The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the 
Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government some- 
times participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what 
reason would reject ; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation sub- 
servient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister 
and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of 
nations has been the victim. 

So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a 
variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an 
imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and 
infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation 
in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. 
It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others 
which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions, by unnecessarily 
parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 203 

and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom equal privileges are with- 
held; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote them- 
selves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interest of their own 
country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding with the appear- 
ances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public 
opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of 
ambition, corruption, or infatuation. 

As avenues to foreign influence, in innumerable ways, such attachments are 
particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How 
many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice 
the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public 
councils ! Such an attachment of a small or weak toward a great and powerful 
nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter. 

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, 
fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake ; since 
history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes 
of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else 
it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense 
against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of 
another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve 
to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may 
resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious ; 
while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to 
surrender their interests. 

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending 
our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as 
possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled 
with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. 

Europe has a set of primary interests which' to us have none, or a very remote 
relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of 
which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise 
in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her 
politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities. 

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different 
course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not 
far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance ; when we may 
take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon 
to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of 
making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation ; 
when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. 

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation ? Why quit our own, to 
stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any 
part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambi- 
tion, interest, humor, or caprice ? 

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the 
foreign world, so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it ; for let me not be 



204 APPENDIX 

understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold 
the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is 
always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed 
in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise 
to extend them. 

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respecta- 
ble defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary 
emergencies. 

Harmony, and a liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, 
humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal 
and impartial hand : neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences ; 
consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying, by gentle 
means, the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing, with powers so 
disposed, in order to give trade a -stable course, to define the rights of our mer- 
chants, and to enable the Government to support them, conventional rules of 
intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, 
but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experi- 
ence and circumstances shall dictate ; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in 
one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a 
portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, 
by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents 
for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving 
more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors 
from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just 
pride ought to discard. 

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate 
friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could 
wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our 
nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. 
But if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit 
or some occasional good — that they may now and then recur to moderate the 
fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard 
against the impostures of pretended patriotism — this hope will be a full recom- 
pense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated. 

How far, in the discharge of my official duties, I have been guided by the 
principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of 
my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself, the assurance 
of my own conscience is that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them. 

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my Proclamation of the 22d of 
April, 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, and by 
that of your Representatives in both Houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure 
has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me 
from it. 

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I 
was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case, had a 
right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral position. 



WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS 205 

Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, 
with moderation, perseverance, and firmness. 

The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct it is not neces- 
sary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that, according to my under- 
standing of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the belligerent 
powers, has been virtually admitted by all. 

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything more, 
from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases 
in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity 
toward other nations. 

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred to 
your own reflections and experience. With me, a predominant motive has been 
to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institu- 
tions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and con- 
sistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own 
fortunes. 

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of 
intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it 
probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I 
fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may 
tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to view 
them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of rny life dedicated to its 
service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to 
oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest. 

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent 
love toward it which is so natural to a man who views in it the native soil of 
himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with pleasing 
expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the 
sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influ- 
ence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, 
and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers. 

George Washington. 
United States, September iyth, ryg6. 



INDEX 



Abundance, how increased, 92 

Abuses, reform of, 28 

Accumulation, spirit of, 112 

Aggressive wars, free nations not inclined to, 

17 
American citizens, rights of, 143; political 

system, 8, 138-143 

Americans should be intelligent, 7 

Argument, a means of righting wrongs, 25 

Authority and responsibility go together, 33 

Bank notes, not money, 81 ; small, should be 

prohibited, 82 
Bank officers, proper punishment of, 83 
Banks, how responsibility should be fixed, 82; 

object of, 77 
Barter, 64 

Bimetallism, when possible, 72 
Boards and commissions, evils of, 33 
Bonds, government, 59 
Bosses, political, 149 
British government, a fault in, 31 
Burglar, case of a, 18 
Business, order of, in public assemblies, 162, 

167-170 

California sheep man, case of, 89 

Call of the House, 164 

Capital, destruction of, 80; economical use of, 

78; importance of abundant, 115; what is, 

61, 113 
Centralization, dangers of, 32 
Citizens must help officials, 17, 20 
Citizenship, 40 

City, a business corporation, 146 
City governments, reform of, 147-8 
Civilization, conditions necessary for, 63 
Civil service, reform in, 132 
Coinage does not add value, 69 
Colonial acquisitions, 156 
Colonies, thirteen, 134 
Commerce, impediments to, 93; importance 

of, 91 ; necessity of, 65 ; not a swindling 

transaction, 96; regulation of, 98; spreads 

civilization, 94 



Commissions, executive, evils of, 33 

Committee of the whole, 171-2 

Committees, how formed, 171; object of, 165 

Compulsory school law, 52 

Confederation, why insufficient, 135 

Congress, and our territories, 153; a repre- 
sentative body, 49; in the constitution, 47 

Constitution — does not enforce itself, 35; 
qualities of a good, 46 

Constitutionality of laws, 46 

Constitutions, limit power of majorities, 45 

Cooperative associations, how nations are, 62 

Copper used as money, 68 

Corporations, abuses by, 27; artificial per- 
sons, 116 

Credit, misuse of, 79-80; usefulness of, 79 

Debate, importance of, 48, 174; rules for, 

172-3 
Debtors, bankrupt, 60 
Debts, government, 59 
Decentralization, importance of. 31, 158 
Demonetization of silver dollar, 73 
Dependencies, how to rule, 157 
Despotism, evils of, 25, 26 
Diaz, President of Mexico, 19 
Diversity of industries, 99 
Donkey, how to load a, 58 
Duties, protective, 98; effects of, 103 
Duty, the law of, 10 

Educational qualifications, 39 

Education, not the equivalent of intelligence, 
51; public, 52, 53 

Eggs, 92 

Elections, when uninteresting, 41 

Electoral franchise, limitations of, 38, 39 

Employment, no longer easily got, 53; pub- 
lic, 130 

Exchange, freedom of, 135; money a me- 
dium of, 67; of products, 64, 91, 93 

Executive, chief, should have large powers, 
32, 34; responsibility of, 45, 133 

Factory operatives, 104 

Federal Constitution, benefits of, 137 



206 



INDEX 



207 



Federal government, duties and limits of, 138- 
140; powers of, limited, 30 

Free coinage of silver, 70, 74 

Free government, a school of the manly 
virtues, 24; not always most convenient, 
23; revolution inexcusable under, 24 

Free trade within the Union, 97, 137 

Furnaces, iron, 108 

Gold and silver coined in eighty years, 72 
Gold worthless unless got out by labor, 63 
Government, division into parts, 29; how 

made ineffective, 44; object of, 16, 21; ours 

the best, 158; primary duty of, 54; various 

forms of, 14 
Greenbacks, government promises to pay 

money, 83; reissue of — why injurious, 84, 

85 

Handicraft schools needed. 53 
Hawaii, annexation of, 36 
Home industry, protection of, 100 
Home market, control of, 102 
Homestead provisions, 155 

Independent voters, 37 
Indiana farmers, case of, 88 
Indirect taxation, why preferred, 56 
Industries, derangement of, 107; different 

qualities of, 108; diversity of, 99, 100; 

natural progress of. 100 
Intelligence, necessary for good citizenship, 

51 
Intemperance, a great curse, 122 
Interest, high rates because of risks, 88; 

natural rate of, varies, 89; why charged, 

86 
Interference, by government, 23, 74 

Judges, should not be elected, 42 
Jury, grand, 150, 151; petit, 151; why "of 
the vicinage," 152 

Labor, benefited by capital, 113 ; foreign, 
104 

Labor associations, 118, 119 

Laborers, hired, 101, 113 

Lawmaking, checks on, 48; powers, how 
distributed, 13 

Laws, foolish, enacted by good men, 12; 
must be obeyed, 145; prompt enforcement 
of, 18; proper limits of, 13; reform of, 14 

Laws should be changed slowly, 48; unjust if 
partial, in; when unwise, 124 

Legal tender, greenbacks a, 83; laws ineffect- 
ive, 75; notes, injured the poor, 84 

Legislators, not delegates, 49 



Liberty, how made secure, 32 ; lawful — chief 
glory of a nation, 122; must not injure 
others, 12; why sometimes surrendered, 
16 

Limited liability corporations, 27, 116, 117 

Liquor licenses, 125 

Local option, 126, 127 

Local self-government, 30 

Machinery, old and new, 108 

" Machines," political, 41 

Manhood suffrage, importance of, 39 

Markets, wide range of, how useful, 96 

Men, no surplus, 120 

Merchants' business is exchange of products, 
66 

Migration, right of, 138 

Minorities, protection of, 45 

Minority, duty of, 35, 128, 129 

Mints, object of, 69 

Miser, why disliked, 113 

Misgovernment, responsibility for, how fixed, 
34 

Moderation in life, a virtue, 12 

Money, a medium of exchange, 67; interest 
on, 85; only a measure of values, 74; vari- 
ous forms of, 68 

Monopolies, helped by limited liability laws, 
117 

Morals, corruption of, 15 

Motions, order of, 167-170 

Napoleon III., case of, 15 
National bank system, 83 
National debt, not a blessing, 76 
Naturalization laws, 41 
Nebraska farmer, case of, 91-2 
Non-partisan boards lead to jobbing, 37 

Occupations, if overcrowded, 119 

Officeholders, 130 

Office seeking, vice of, 131 

Officials, must be watched, 145 

Opposition party, important uses of, 35 

Over-production, 109 

Panics, effects of, on laborers, 115 

Partisanship, 41, 132 

Party government in free states, 37; why 

necessary, 128 
Party platforms, 38 
People, reserved rights of, 143 
Politics, and business, 146; in a free nation, 7 
Poor and rich, 40 

Postmasters should not be elected, 43, 133 
President — when able to do what he pleases, 

36 



208 



INDEX 



Presiding officer, duties of, 164; must be 

addressed, 162 
Previous question, the, 168 
Private enterprise important, 23 
Prohibitory liquor laws, 123 
Property, duties of, 39; how produced, 61, 

96; if insecure, 63 
Protection, cost of, 109 

Protective duties, policy in United States, 98 
Public lands, importance of, 154 
Public meetings, dignity in, 162 
Public opinion, how degraded, 16; importance 

of, 17, 35; needed to enforce laws, 124 
Public schools, 52, 53 

Quorum, why necessary, 164 

Railroads, extend markets, 92; why govern- 
ment should not own, 23 

Reform of evils, slow, 38, 148; without revo- 
lution, 24 

Rent, 85, 86 

Republics, inclined to peace, 17 

Resistance to laws, why excusable, 145 

Responsibility and authority, 33; evil of 
divided, 44 

Revenue, from indirect taxes, 56; surplus — 
why objectionable, 57 

Rich and poor, 40 

Robberies, train and stage, 18 

Rotation in office. 131 

Rules, for public meetings, 161 

" Rum did it," 123 

Schools, public, a political institution, 52; 
reform needed in, 53 

Self defense, importance of, 18 

Self-denial, importance' of, 61 

Self-government, local, 30 

Senate, advisory powers of, 34 

Shoemaker, case of, 66 

Silver, coined in eighty years, 72; demone- 
tized, 73; made subsidiary coin, 73; fluctua- 
tions of, 74; free coinage of, 70, 74; used as 
money, 69 



Small change, 68 

Speculation, vice of, 117 

Stability, great importance of, 38, 159; how 

guarded, 48 
State governments, powers of, 141 
Strikes, 121 

Subordinate officers should be appointed, 43 
Subsidiary coinage, 68, 70, 71 
Suffrage, general, important, 40 
Supreme Court, one function of, 46 
Surplus, how got, 61; when needed, 112 
Surplus products, how acquire value, 91 ; 

when valueless, 65 

Tariff, high, causes trusts, no 

Taxation, indirect, may lead to jobbing, 57; 
needless — impoverishes, 76 ; primary ob- 
ject of, 54; rules for, 59 

" Tax eaters," so-called, 130 

Taxes, direct or indirect, 56; evils of ill- 
adjusted, 58; hard times, 58 

Telegraphs, government ownership of, 22, 28 

Territorial acquisitions, 154 

Territories, government of, 153 

" Third Term," 47 

Town meeting, a pure democracy, 50; im- 
portant as training citizens, 51 

Trade schools, important, 53 

Trades unions, 118, 122 

Treason, penalty of, 47 

Trusts, origin of, no 

Usury laws evaded, 91; injurious to bor- 
rowers, 87 

Vested interests, 119 
Veto, meaning of, 48 
Vigilantes in Montana, 19 

Wages, rise slowly, 84 

Wampum, used as money, 68 

Wealth, necessary to civilization, 64; of a 

nation, 63 
Wool and woolens, 105-6 

Yankee notions, 103 



TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. CUSHING & CO., NORWOOD, MASS. 






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